To Hell and Black
by Ithil Aerlinn
Summary: Zombies and Avengers. O/C Journey, gets drunk and ends up at Tony Starks house. A strange storm is brewing outside bringing destruction...This is a zombie story full of ALOT of gratuitous sex. A lot of it. And killing. And blood. See, I like that kind of shit. And I have written this for my own amusement. If it amuses you, great, if not write your own. Not slash, sorry
1. Chapter 1

**I dont of course own any character in this story, except the original one. There is alot of sex for sex sake, and there will be alot of violence and gore later on. So read at your own risk, boys and girls ;-)**

I am not absolutely certain how the fuck I got here. I mean, sometimes I look back and it's like some kind of insane dream world, sometimes a wet dream and sometimes a nightmare. This all makes no sense, I realize. It makes no real sense now, but hopefully it eventually will….when the horror sets in, and the lights go out. Let me enlighten you:

I was steamrolling through morning hangover cup of coffee number three. I was doing this at the kitchen table of a lavish pad that I did not recognize, but that was not entirely new. This has happened before when I drink too much. Not that I have a problem, fuck you very much,. I don't drink all the time (sometimes I do drugs instead.) (THAT was a joke by the way. Screw drugs, I have better things to waste my money on), but sometimes when I start, I just do not know where to stop before things get hazy and weird. I once woke up in China Town wearing a foo dog head….and not much else. So sipping coffee in a modernesque kitchen was not anything really worrisome. And it was REALLY good coffee.

Then HE walked in, looking like a shambling hoard, if a shambling hoard could also look hot at the same time they look like…well, dead, and he shuffled over to the coffee pot as well. I knew who he was and where I was the moment I saw him. His dark hair was in disarray, he was shirtless and wearing a pair of pajama pants that barely hugged his waist. It was apparent he had little to do with boxers or briefs this morning, and had the makings of morning wood…or what was left of it. It was hard to tear my eyes away from his crotch, but the pulsing blue glow of the metal sticking out of his chest, that made it a little easier. The arc reactor…I had gotten wasted at Iron Man's place. How the fuck…

Tony Stark cocked an eyebrow at me then. "You're still here?"

Uhmmm, bitch. That was what I thought, but this is what came out in a sort of shocked gasp, "You have better coffee then Starbucks." Lame.

He grinned a little at that and came to sit across from me at the table. I took the opportunity to try to compose myself …damn he was sexy…no, that is not composing…"What happened last night?"

"You pulled a Tony Stark," he said grimly. It was my turn to cock an eyebrow at him. "I mean, you got drunk enough last night to wake up not knowing where you are, what happened, what you did, or who you did it with."

Oooohhh, so _that's _a Tony Stark…."Yeah, I guess I did. Did I dance on the tables and shoot out the lights? Care to let me know, or were you that shit faced too?"

He sucked in a breath and feined shock. "Such language on such a proper young lady."

I snorted, "I know that is sarcasm, but in case you need a refresher, I woke up in your bathtub, fully clothed at least, but have no idea how I got in a billionaire superheroes home…that is hardly proper behavior. "

"Yeah," he mocked, "The tattoos and piercing were a dead give away. How old are you anyway? I can't go to jail just for having coffee with you can I?"

"I don't know, did you sodomize me with a chicken last night, cause that is punishable by five days in the pokey where I come from."

Coffee nearly shot out of his nose. He choked and then burst into gales of laughter. "Where the hell ARE you from?" He asked when he could speak again.

"The Deep South….and I'm 25. I just look a lot younger. Apparently I have one of those faces that my momma says I will be thankful for when I am like 50 and still look 35." Gods, she used to tell me that all the time, before….

"THAT explains the accent, and my urge for greens and cornbread every time you start talking. So back to how you got in my bathtub. I actually have no idea how you ended up in _there_, but I know how you ended up _here. _I had a little party last night. On my way out to pick up a couple of guests I found you. You were already drunk."

Ohhhh, yeah, little bits and pieces were coming back to me now. "I had a fight with an ex last night," I said, thinking out loud. "Well, he wasn't my ex until the fight…and he threw me out on my ass. So I went and got loaded at Milligan's Pub. After that, I'm not sure."

Tony grinned again (DAMN that shit is cute, he just needs to keep doing THAT). "You were walking up the sidewalk and singing some damn song at the top of your lungs," he said, "in front of a friends apartment. She thought you were funny, and your lip was busted and bleeding, which worried her, and so you ended up in my limo, and then back here. You drank some more and disappeared. I thought you must have left, but I see you didn't."

"I guess I didn't really have a place to go," I mumbled, remembering the fight. Billy had told me to get the fuck out and not come back. He was a controlling jerk anyway, and when I wouldn't do every little thing when and where he wanted, he packed my stuff in a bag and told me to get out…"My bag," I said, looking around the room. "Did I have a bag when you picked me up last night?"

"Yep," Tony was eyeing me now. "You checked it at the coat closet…why was your lip bleeding? You told me last night you had bit it, but I know bullshit when I hear it."

I got up and padded across the kitchen for another cup of coffee. Avoidance is one of my specialties. "This really is better than Starbucks," I said, turning away from him.

"Why was your lip bleeding?" I jumped a little and gasped. His voice was right in my ear…he must be quiet as a damn cat when he crosses the room. I didn't turn, just closed my eyes and felt his heat against my back…it felt really good for him to be that close. Natural, even.

"Because," I began, barely speaking above a whisper. "He told me I was too stupid to do what he asked me to do, too stupid to keep the house clean, too stupid to cook the meals…and I told him if he hadn't been such a fucking douche bag, and SO bad in bed, I might have wanted to actually DO those things for him. So he knocked the shit out of me, threw my bag at me and that was that."

Tony pressed himself a little closer against my back. I idly wondered if it was just because I was the only female left after what was probably a helluva party, and there was that little issue of morning wood. He was a notorious playboy after all. But then shouldn't he have gotten his fill last night? My mind drifted to what his bed probably looked like in the morning, women stacked in there like dominoes. I giggled nervously in my own head.

"You won't go back to some fucking asshole that hits you, will you?" he asked.

"Of course not. I don't take being shit on lightly," I hissed. "I'm no child."

"Oh, I can see that quite plainly," he murmured into my hair. I shivered and my pelvis stirred with wistful neediness. I wanted him to bend me over that counter, I wanted it bad.

" -," I began. He tutted, "Tony, please. God, I hate that crap. I may be old enough to be your dad, but I certainly AM NOT." He put a hand on my shoulder and turned me around. The hand lingered for a moment and then slid down my arm, down my side, and settled on my hip. Little trills of electricity shot through me from everywhere that his hand had been. His dark eyes looked directly into mine. "But you can call me Daddy if you want too."

"I bet this is how you seduce all the girls," I said.

Tony chuckled, "Why, is it working now?"

"You might have to try a little harder, just sayin."

"Mmmm," he said, brushing a strand of chocolate brown hair from my face. "I do love a challenge."

I was insanely aware that he had even more of a hard on now then he'd had when he shuffled into the kitchen. Apparently a little verbal _tete a tete_ set him off. I could not, no matter how hard I tried, keep my eyes from drifting downward. Tony moved in closer to me. "I don't even know your name," he said. His cock was pressed into my thigh, hard as steel and just as unyielding. _OMFG, I'm going to go insane, before I even have a chance to put that thing in my mouth,_ I thought. And damn, did I want too.

"Journey," I murmured. He cocked an eyebrow again. "My name… it's Journey."

"Fitting, and I am sure this is the beginning of a very interesting one," (Tony Stark had no idea how pragmatic those words were right then. Neither did I.) " As I am to understand it, you have no home to go too," he looked almost gleeful. I got that look a lot when guys found out my name, but this was different, more like a cat that had a mouse trapped in a corner….and was about to eat it. Ooo, how I hoped he would.

Not one to be undone and seem desperate, I said, "I can manage. I've done it plenty of times before."

"Hard one, are you?" Tony asked. His hand was trailing electric circles on my thigh, dangerously close to the center of the heat that was radiating through my body.

"That makes two of us," I whispered.

He bit at his lip and pressed his hardness into me a bit more. He didn't speak as he brushed his fingertips along my neck. My own hands were shaking, I put them back onto the counter to brace myself. This was all so crazy. This amazing man, full of himself and totally narcissistic, but still fucking phenomenal, was seducing me, and I wanted it more than anything. I was never attracted to assholes like this, who were full of themselves, so sure about everything, and hell bent on getting what they wanted with vague regard for anyone else. But I didn't care right now. None of that mattered. Nor did I care that he could have any woman he wanted, that he'd bedded God only knows how many…I didn't care that he was twice my age. Here I was, tattoed sleeves, pierced face, and ripped up jeans, and this super human with more money then I could fathom found that to be what he wanted RIGHT THEN-and our needs coincided. That was all either of us needed in that moment.

"I am incredibly attracted to you," he quipped matter of factly. "You don't say," I countered. "And all this time I just thought you were paranoid I was going to steal the good silver."

"That too but we shall deal with your little petty theft problem later when I am not so fucking attracted to you that my dick hurts," he said, looking down at his own crotch. The pajama pants were starting to look incredibly strained. He smiled at himself, and then cut his eyes back up to meet mine.

"Are you really admiring your own cock?" I asked. Tony's eyes twinkled.

"Let me take you to bed." He took my hand, and I let him lead me through the house, past the bathroom whose bathtub I had fallen asleep in, and into a bedroom, with an amazing view, and the plushest bed I had ever seen.

"You may never get rid of me, Stark," I murmured, standing in front of the window. There were dark clouds rolling through the sky, storm clouds. "You have coffee that is better than Starbucks, a view to rival any landmark, and a bed that puts Hilton to shame. I may have to stake a claim somewhere in this house and wait for the homesteading law to kick in."

He slid his arms around me, strong and hard, and laughed in my hair. "Will you be building a shanty or a condo on your claim?"

"I haven't made it that far in the planning stages. Let's see how the sex goes first, and then I will decide on the permanence of my structure."

"Are you on the pill?" he asked, suddenly serious.

"No, old school," I mocked. "But I do have one of those fancy new fangled IUD thingies that the kids are all the rage over."

He rubbed his erection against my rear end at that remark, and slid his hands up into my hair. "You're a laugh a fucking minute," he breathed. Grabbing a handful, Tony jerked my head backward and bit the back of my neck, my sweet spot. Leave it to a womanizer to know immediately exactly where a woman's favorite spot was.

"You already sized me up, haven't you?" I asked. The dark clouds outside began to mount in strength. I could hear wind blowing past the building, howling mournfully. I had a strange pang of nostalgia and homesickness. I knew the only thing that was going to chase that melancholy away was the man behind me who was now slowly, silkily gliding my shirt up over my head.

"Nope, I haven't yet. Don't want too. You are still a mystery to me…and I like that," he growled as he grinded into me. "Now, I need some new pretty pretty in my room, so how about getting into my bed?"

"That was a terrible pick up line," I laughed, complying. The bed felt just as good as it looked. I sank into down and sighed. "You better take me now, big boy, cause I may fall asleep in this thing. It's like a narcoleptic's wet dream,"

"I'm pretty sure I have already picked you up. If I haven't we may both be confused...and there is no way you will be able to sleep through me." Tony bounced up onto the bed and crouched in front of me like a cat. I sat up and smiled at him. "Sure of yourself, aren't ya?" This bantering was fun, he presented a challenge and always came back with something. Billy had been an idiot, and most of the time he'd looked at me like I was the daft one. Thunder crashed outside.

"I find storms incredibly erotic…there now you are one step closer to knowing who the fuck you are about to bed," I murmured, turning to see the lightening crackle across the sky. It seemed to be an odd color, but I didn't much care at the moment. It could have been purple with pink polka dots and that would have been fine with me. It still stirred my loins like it always had…I could feel it pulsing through me, much like the electricity of Tony's hand in the kitchen. I decided right then that two could play the cat and mouse game, and I pounced on him, knocking him back onto the fluffy bed. Deftly, I pulled down the pajama bottoms and stared longingly at his cock. It was ready, pulsing with blood and need…and I wanted to control it. I wrapped my mouth around him and swallowed his length as if I were starving, raking my teeth back up toward the head. Tony yelped, and then arched his back.. . I put my hand underneath him, supporting the small of his back so that I could better position him to slide down my throat. He groaned and tried to grind against my mouth, but my other hand pressed down on his hip, and I used my teeth to show him the rhythm I was willing to give _him. _This was the ultimate control a woman had over a man in bed…she could control how fast he came, if she decided to let him come at all. He did not seem completely receptive to this dominant role I had just assumed, and put his hands into my hair trying to impale my face upon him…I laughed deep in my throat, and he moaned again. No matter how hard he pulled my hair, I would not budge. Finally he gave in and dropped his hands to the bed, clawing at the comforter as I began my slow delicious decent down his length. "_Fuuuuuck,"_ he growled out., "goddamn where did you _come_ from?"

I used my hand to make him arch more into my mouth and began to suck him harder. When I felt him start to tense and the noises he made had began to change, I slowed down…and then brought him close again. This happened over and over , I have no idea how long. We weren't counting. The lightening crashed outside, and I grew wetter every time I heard it-as if the lightening were crashing inside me, shooting sparks into my pelvis. Finally when I thought the poor thing had enough, (his knuckles were white where he held the bed sheets), I swirled my tongue around his cock. Tony's hips bucked, his body jerked, and he cried out, deep and gutteral as I let him come into my mouth, down my throat. He tasted sweet and bitter all at the same time.

I pulled back away from him, watching the furrow in his eyebrows, listened to him pant and whimper…the hottest noises a man can make are while he is fucking, coming, and experiencing afterglow. I slid my fingers along his length, causing a twitching spasm to coarse through his body, and a yelp of "FUCK!" escaped his lips. I laughed and then got up and crossed the room, back to the window and leaned against a chair to watch the show outside. He would need a moment to recoperate before we went on…I knew how much I had drained him. No rain fell yet. The lightening was still going full force, but it was definitely NOT a normal color. It was tinged with a greenish glow that I had never seen before. Odd, and I was about to say something about it, when I heard him come up behind me. "Recovered already?" I asked beginning to turn.

"Stop, stay where you are at, and grab the arms of that chair. It's your turn, and I don't take this challenge lightly. You brought it, baby, and I am about to return the favor."

I was facing the back of the chair, the seat just under my knees. I did as he asked, since I knew he was about to take the same control from me that I had from him. I looked down and back, spreading my legs to see what he was doing….Tony kneeled onto his own knees, and licked his lips. "You are going to taste so fucking good," he murmured. He took my thighs in his strong callused hands. They felt good, rough, yet gentle…unyielding yet accommodating. And then he pressed his mouth into my wetness. His tongue was perfect, he knew exactly how to suck at my clit, and exactly how to gracefully swirl his tongue around that bundle of nerves to get the moans from me that he desperately wanted. His firm hands held my trembling legs in place, and I looked underneath me to see his cock rising, growing hard again. Tony pressed a finger into me, and then another…I tried to buck my hips back into him, bury him deeper in me, but he growled and held me fast. "Don't you fucking move," he said, his voice husky with lust. "This is my show now."

I complied with a moan, as he licked and finger fucked me to near orgasm. "I'm going to come,"I gasped, and that was when he stood quick as a flash of lightening from outside, and rammed into me with enough force to nearly knock my already shaking arms out from under me. I scrambled for a hold, grabbing onto the back of the chair, as his strong hand grabbed my waist and held me up. The other hand slipped underneath me and began to stroke my clit…I screamed and pressed my face into the back of the chair while he pounded into me over and over. His hand that gripped my waist was clinging to me so hard that I knew he was going to leave finger prints as he grabbed me and impaled me upon his length.

"HARDER!" I screamed, knowing I was going to be very sore later and might live to regret this. "Please, please, fuck me harder!"

Tony growled, deep and gutteral like a feral thing, and with renewed force and vigor he fucked me until I came with an ear shattering scream of his name. My muscles shivered and contracted around his cock, my whole body quaked with the force of the orgasm. "FUUUUUCK," he yelled again. I could feel the tension in his body, and the shiver and spasm as he came. I loved that feeling, but it was even better with him. Maybe it was his size, he was very well endowed, or maybe just the feeling of freedom that he seemed to give me. Whatever it was, it was intoxicating, and I mourned silently as he slid from my body. Tony's face came to rest on my back for a moment, and then he pulled me back to the bed. "Spend the day here?" he mumbled. "I had intended on it," I answered, allowing my body to be swallowed by comfort and turning to watch the strange lightening outside the window.

For the rest of the day we fucked and dozed, and watched the strange storm. Once I had remarked that we should turn on the televsion to find out what the fuck was really going on out there, and once JARVIS, his computerized house brain-the A.I that attended to his ever whim-had told him that a Director Fury needed to speak to him, but he closed us off from the rest of the world like I was his prisoner. I found that incredibly erotic. We were so caught up in each other that we ignored everything else…until it was too late.

It was evening. The sky had grown immensely dark except for the crashing lightening. It had seemed to slow down sometime around 8 pm…and I thought perhaps it was moving on. For the first time that entire day, Tony had me lain on his bed and was actually on top of me, missionary style. We had literally fucked ourselves senseless in every position imaginable, and couldn't come up with another one. We were so tired, and our bodies so sore, and neither one of us had any idea how the fuck we kept getting horny over and over again.

"I haven't come this much since I was a teenager, and that was in my own hand just to see how many times I could do it in a day," Tony said and he slowly slid into me.

"Boys are weird," I said smiling.

"No, really," he murmured. "I don't even know how my dick keeps getting up. It should be broken by now. What are you, a witch?"

"It's all the Viagra, old man," I scoffed. "it's probably been building up in your system."

He bit my shoulder for that one. "Little Bitch." He pressed inside me a little harder and I gasped. "That I am, Mr Metal."

Tony pumped against me so hard that I slid toward the edge of the bed, my head hanging over. It was an incredibly relaxed and comfortable position, and I closed my eyes and moaned as he softly bucked his hips into mine. And that is when it happened.

The door to the bedroom burst open, just as JARVIS began to apologize and sputter (if A.I's can do that) about his command prompts and security settings being overridden. Simultaneously a huge murderous crash came from outside, and the rain began. It came in torrents, as the green lightening flashed through it, reveiling what looked like a cavernous whirlpool swirling in the middle of the ominous clouds.

"WHAT THE FUCK," a chorus of voices sounded together, mine being one of them. I was staring, upside down out the window. Tony had pulled up off of me and was staring at the intruders, some of which were looking curiously from me to the window.

"Nice view all the way around, Stark," a quiet voice said.

"Banner! What the fuck?" Tony began, but a man with an eye patch silenced him with the flick of his hand. I was idley aware that I was completely naked and spread out before at least six people I did not know, but it didn't really phase me. The real show was outside the window.

"What is that?" I asked rolling over and getting onto my knees on the bed. Tony was throwing on a pair of jeans.

"That," Nick Fury said, draping a blanket over my shoulders, "Is a big fucking problem."


	2. Chapter 2

An hour later I sat in the living room of Tony Stark's home at the top of Stark Tower. I had found my bag, (he really did have a coat check in closet…I thought that was just blatant saracasm) showered and changed. The dress I was wearing was a favorite, made a few years ago by my mother from a polka dot material I had fallen in love with and an oversized Rob Zombie t-shirt. Sounds like an odd combination, but my mother had a major dressmaking talent, and I had been obsessed with Rockabilly pin-ups. She'd made a swing dress for me for my birthday that year. But that was before.

The living room had a wall that was made of glass, and even though it was at a different angle of the tower than the bedroom, it did not matter. The entire sky had been engulfed by the strange storm. Clouds swirled and danced, green bolts of lightening marred the sky in jagged tears before fizzling out so that more could take their place. The booms were deafening and shook the walls…being that high up in the Stark Tower, the Avengers Tower, we felt as though we were in the middle of that hellish storm.

The Avengers. I'd seen their faces on the television, read stories about them in the paper. World's REAL Superheroes, a group put together by Nick Fury to protect the world. And now here they sat, in Tony's living room, assembled again, because it sure the fuck looked like the world needed protecting.

A God was among them, one of them. Just to be near one of the Ancient Ones of the old ways, it was mesmerizing. Thor's tone was quiet as he said, "This is Loki. I can feel that this is all him, and yet I do not know what he is doing. He has escaped Asgard-"

"-and it looks like he is pissed," Fury intereupted. "The last time we faced him, he tried to destroy us all. He did pretty good, but nothing gets past you all." He bared his teeth in a grin that was very feral. "This shit he is cooking up now, though…well, I don't know what too make of it."

"Aren't you the God of Thunder?" Tony spun to look at Thor and flicked his hand at him. "Isn't this kind of weather radar supposed to be your specialty?"

"This is like nothing I have ever summoned or seen," Thor said thoughtfully. "I do not know what power Loki has tapped into, or what he has made a deal with now."

"Well, if he flies by riding a bicycle that turns into a broom, then I can tell you how this is going to end, cause I have seen that one," Bruce Banner said in his soft way.

Tony snorted. "As long as he doesn't have flying monkeys. Cause that would suck. They throw their-"

"Yeah, we get it," Natasha Romanoff said, holding up her hand to shush him. Tony complied, but pouted in her direction.

I drew my knees up to my chest. The black couch against the crisp white walls would have been impressive, except that the green shocks outside kept lighting everything up with a sickly glow. It was giving me a nauseated feeling in the pit of my stomach. JARVIS suddenly piped up to say that there was a very interesting broadcast that he was picking up, and did Sir want him to play it. "Hit me, baby," Tony said.

The broadcast sounded military and at first was a very jumbled mess of fast talking, several people at once. "Can you smooth that out a little, JARVIS? Make it so we can hear one at a time?" Tony asked. The A.I. complied immediately, and one voice pierced through the air. My stomach flip flopped again.

It was a woman. "I-I don't know what is happening. This may be the last time I ever talk to you, and I can't even talk _to_ you….Baby, I wish you had picked up. Listen, stay inside, okay. Janie and I were out at the club when this storm hit…." Static interrupted her ,"…lights went out…we went outside and the lightening was amazing, and then it started raining, so we grabbed a cab. Baby, it was fucking awful…there was this man in the road, like he couldn't see…he just wandered right out into the road, and the cabbie swerved, but we hit him. Oh my god, we fucking _HIT him, HARD." more static… " stopped, Janie was screaming and crying…and we got out, and he was fucking trying to get up, he was TRYING TO GET UP, but his legs were all crumpled under him and they wouldn't work, his back looked broken…and he kept making this awful gurgling growling sound. FUCK, it was fucking awful…His head was all bloody, but he kept trying to get up…and then he was clawing at the ground, and dragging himself over to us, and I kept backing up, and so did the cab driver, but Janie, she just stood there screaming. I grabbed her and tried to drag her, but she was hysterical, and saying, "We have to help him, we have to help him", and we were soaked from that GODDAMN RAIN….and he grabbed her fucking leg and BIT HER. OH MY GOD HE BIT HER LEG AND WOULDN'T LET GO, AND…" there was a loud beep, and a voice said "End of messages."_

_We all sat silent for a moment. "That was a voicemail," Hawkeye said. "And a crazy one. Are there more?"_

_JARVIS played another. This one was actual pieces of a conversation between two men. "What the fuck is this shit about?" The first man said. "The news was saying something about a freak storm, they have no idea what caused it…the power went out and came back on and I've lost TV signal now."_

"_Fuck, dude, I have no idea. Michelle and I are at the hospital, her aunt is in here, ya know, and the lights started flickering. The nurse said it was okay, cause the back up generators kick in when the main power fails. But then somebody down the hall started screaming, and we could hear more shouts from all over the place in there, the phones started ringing in the nurses station, someone was yelling about ICU being full of crazies…" the second man said. He sounded out of breath. "We just barricaded ourselves in her Aunt's room, and I called you. Something bad is going on man."_

"_Why the fuck are you barricaded in a hospital room? And what is that sound?"_

_In the background of the phone converstation we could hear a strange muffled screaming noise and scraping, scratching. "That's them, that's why I called," the second man said. "There are people outside of the door, and they are trying to get into the fucking room. I swear, dude, I swear…"_

"_WHAT?" the first man screamed. _

"_You remember all those nights when we were kids, and we would sneak back down to the living room late at night and watch those zombie movies? Scare ourselves senseless, and have nightmares for like a week, and then do it all over again?" The man was laughing now, but it also sounded like he was crying too. "Well, bro, it's like that here. It's like that now. I don't know if it's some kind of a virus, or the fucking apocalypse, but it's just like all those fucking movies we watched."_

_The scratching in the background grew louder, and then there was a sickening splintering sound, followed by screaming. The man on the other end of the phone was screaming his brother's name over and over when Tony told JARVIS to stop. There were more transmissions, some were so awful that I feel guilty for being able to tell you about them now…the kind of things that make you wish you hadn't lived to hear them. Calls between mothers and their children, lovers dying in car crashes but calling home to give their goodbyes, and always, always screaming. And while we were listening, the rain stopped._

"_I-I can't take this anymore", I said. "This can't be real, it just can't…I've got to get some air." _

_Tony pressed a button and the glass wall slid partially open. I walked out onto the huge balcony and took a deep breath of air. It seemed off, heavy, full. I walked toward the edge. "I don't know if that is such a good idea," he yelled. "The wind could pick back up and toss you over."_

"_Can you hear that?" I asked him. There was a noise, like a low moaning, but intensified, multiplied, times a thousand. Or maybe a million. It was loud, haunting. Like the sound the wind makes when it blows through the eaves, only sadder…or madder, I couldn't tell which at first. I walked to the edge of the building and looked down. "WHAT THE FUCK? Have you got binoculars?"_

"_Of course he does, he's a pervert," Natasha quipped, gaining her a laugh from the rest of the team, and a glare from Tony. He mumbled to himself as he dug out a couple of pairs of binoculars, and they all joined me at the edge of the balcony. _

_When I looked through them my heart jerked in my chest. I heard a gasp from my right, as Tony put a pair up to his eyes. "What is it?" Bruce asked. "What are all those people doing?"_

_Through the binoculars I could see the throngs of people in the street below were not just standing at the base of Stark Tower waiting on a show from Iron Man or for the Avengers to come and save them. They weren't waiting in line for the city bus or a coney at Fred's Hot Dog Wagon. The faces were vacant, lifeless, many covered in blood. Dead eyes shone in the light from the still flashing lightening and the street lamps that were flickering below. Some of them were kneeling on the ground around something else…then the something else would twitch, they would move a little and I could see the body underneath them. The blood, so much fucking blood. A child, around 10, expressionless, slowly walked into my line of vision, an arm in his hands. The arm was still wearing a watch. I watched in horror and fascination as he took a deep bite out of it and then meandered back into the crowd. Occasionally a scream could be heard and the crowd would moan even louder in unison, like one collective mind. Not sad. Not mad. Hungry. _

_My stomach jolted and tried to revolt. I handed the binoculars off to Bruce, like they were a poisonous snake that I needed to be rid of right then. "They're eating."_

"_Eating what?" Steve asked cautiously. He hadn't a word until now, just listened. _

"_Eating us," Tony murmured. _


	3. Chapter 3

"Well," Tony Stark said as he poured another glass of Scotch. "That's a new one."

I sat at the bar across from him, a drink in my hand. My belly felt warm from the heat of it. After witnessing what I just had, I didn't know if I would be able to stop drinking, or if Tony would either for that matter. The rest of the team sat in shocked silence, wide eyed and pale.

"Before we go down there and start blasting away," Clint finally spoke up, "Can we be certain they are really what we think they are? My God, I feel like an idiot just saying it….Zombies, there. It is out, I said it, blah blah blah….but what if they are just civilians, under some sort of trance that Loki dreamed up."

That hadn't occurred to any of them yet. After looking over the edge of the balcony, Tony had ordered JARVIS to "Dress Daddy, baby," and heading to a pad on the deck so that the A.I could comply. Fury had stopped him. "Your about to pre ejaculate, Stark. Cool it for a moment." A nauseating explosion sounded from below, another car slamming into the side of a building across the street. I didn't need binoculars to see that, or that the driver began to crawl slowly out of the window, on fire, and that the passenger was still alive, screaming, and being dragged out of her own window by a throng of hungry…onlookers.

So we had come back inside upon Nick Fury's orders, so that we could "Figure out what the fuck the best course of action is here". Tony and I saddled up to the bar immediately. Natasha was not far behind. "Vodka, Stark," was all she said.

"So what do you suggest?" Steve asked. "That we catch one of them to see what they are? That we just sit here while they all eat each other down there until there is nothing left? That we wait for the spell to break, if that is what it really is?"

Thor headed back to the balcony. "I must find Loki. I must find my brother and find out WHAT HE HAS DONE!" he shouted. And then he was gone.

"We can't just sit here and wait," Steve murmured.

"What do you say we do, Spangles?" Tony asked. "How about you wave the grand ole flag at them and see if they are terrorists?"

Steve's eyes narrowed. "If I were a lesser man-" , he began, but broke off.

Tony began to come around the bar, his jaw set. "What? You would what? And a lesser man like me, you mean?"

"This is not the time or place," Natasha hissed. "You two can slap out your differences like a couple of little girls later."

Tony came over next to me, and leaned back against the bar. He eyed me curiously for a moment, and then his eyes narrowed and he sighed….a contented sigh in a moment of total chaos. The jerk was thinking about bedding me, I realized, and it struck me as completely inappropriate and totally funny. I laughed and slapped his shoulder. "WHAT?" he said, trying for a shocked and innocent look. "I was just thinking about butterflies and daisies….and how you do that one thing. You know, with your-"

"Shut up!" I hit him again, harder this time. "It is World War Z out there and you are perving on me like a creepy old guy," I laughed. Leave it to him to make me quiver in the middle of all this death. The look on his face had me reliving the moment too.

His mouth opened in an O. "Easy there, Cheerleader, don't get your pom poms in a twist. So, what would be your advice about this little predicament we find ourselves in? You look like one of those girls that thinks zombies are _hot._" He said the last with the gayest accent I had ever heard from a man, and it was hilarious.

"Okay, all kidding aside, if it were me, I would fall back on every Hollywood zombie movie I had ever seen," I said.

Bruce crossed his arms and smiled patiently at me. "This isn't a movie, kid. This is real life."

I nodded, "Yeah, I realize that. But you are the Hulk. And he," I said, looking around the room, "is Captain America. Here we have Iron Man, Hawkeye, the Black Widow…are you getting my point here? You guys are fucking _superheroes_ in the real world. A God just left here a few minutes ago to go find ANOTHER God. How much more Hollywood can you get? I think we stopped dealing with reality as we know it, or knew it, back when Iron Man blew out of the side of this building and started trying to single handedly create world peace for the glory of his own ego. Wouldn't you agree?"

Bruce laughed. "Okay, you got me there-Stark has a huge ego."

Tony grunted and gave me a little sideways grin. "I do don't I? You've seen it, you can tell him-" . I smacked him again. "All this S&M shit is starting to turn me on," he said.

"As I was about to say, before Stark's ego took over as usual, it is a little too late for rational thought." Bruce sighed heavily. "Then every zombie epic tells us that if we get bit by a zombie we become one."

"And," I added, "you have to shoot them in the head. Head and Dead. If Tony here goes down there and starts blasting away at walking corpses, there will be pieces of still living-not living-undead-whatever-bodies crawling all over the place. I don't want to loose a toe to somebody's dead granny." That was supposed to be funny, but it made me shudder. The visual was….well, it was nasty.

Fury held up his hand. "Then we agree that they are the Z word, and not just a bunch of civies under a Loki spell? Cause I really don't think someone in a trance could still be trying to eat a person if they were all broken and bleeding and on fire."

There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the group. "Then that settles that," said Clint. He grabbed his bow and quiver and walked back out onto the landing.

"He is a deathly shot, but won't he eventually run out of arrows?" Steve asked. "We could send Hulk down there, but what if he gets bitten….then we would have a raging green corpse on our hands."

Tony grinned. "I've been working on some new improvements to the suit. Maybe it's time to try 'em out." He grabbed me around my waist and pulled me over to him. "Kiss for luck?" Then he cocked his head and stared into my eyes for a moments. His were incredibly dark and swimmy, maybe from the alcohol. Silently I wished for another drink. "Do you know in the entire time we spent in bed together, and on the floor, and on the chair, and against the wall-"

"Tony," my voice was a good humored warning. "I may have to hit you again."

"We never kissed," he finished. "Not one single time did you put your lips on mine or vica versa…well, I put mine on _your _lips, but it wasn't the pretty pierced ones on your face." He looked very serious. "Isn't that weird?"

I had to admit that it was. I loved to kiss, I loved that feeling of someone else's tongue teaching mine to kiss they way that they liked. That feeling of suffocation for just a minute…kissing stirred my loins like nothing else could. And we had not done it once. The lightening. It had keep flashing and crashing inside of me…making me want him in me, on me, all over me.

I leaned into his mouth. His taste was that of the ancient Scotch he had been throwing back, but also the same sweetness I had tasted on his cock the day before. My tongue swirled around his, and Tony pressed into the kiss, deep and longingly…making my pelvic regions tingle. He moaned softly into my mouth. That familiar ache began again. Lightening crashed loud outside, and a BOOM made the building shake. It vibrated inside of me as well, in my crotch, up through my belly to my breasts. I was going to throw him down and take him right here if I didn't stop now. Regretfully, I pulled away from the erotic softness of Tony Stark's mouth. Nearly breathless, I whispered, "I'm so gonna be fucking that later."

He smiled that electric smile. "You took the words right out of my mouth, Pom Pom Queen."

Another crash shook the building as Thor landed on the balcony outside, and a second later another man landed beside him. He pulled himself upright, tall and slender, dark hair hanging around a beautiful pale face. His clothes seemed regal…he seemed regal. He held himself like a price, his emerald eyes shining in the dark. Eyes the same color as the lightening in the sky.

"Loki!" Tony hissed. They glared at each other, the way that old rival's do. Anger seething out of both of them.

Fury stepped forward. "Are you behind this madness?"

The corners of his lips curled up on the sides. "Well…yes and no." The God was staring at me, into me, and it was starting to feel pretty good. I had no idea what game this was, but that is sure what it felt like. A game.

Tony stepped in front of me. "I don't care for the way you are looking at her, you little fuck."

Loki laughed. "A bit too protective of your possessions, are you not? I believe that is a confidence issue."

I didn't much like being called someone's possession, but the truth was the way the God made me feel as he was staring into my eyes freaked me out, BIG TIME, and so I let Tony throw his bravado around and act as a barrier between us. My head was beginning to feel fuzzy, like too much wine. A strange silence feel over me, my ears were muffled as if by cotton, and I realized Tony and Loki seemed to be speaking angrily to each other…but I couldn't hear them. I peeked around Tony's shoulder at the emerald eyed God. He winked at me.

In my head I heard his voice. _See me, little one. Hear me. I am going to take you now._

"Take me where?" I murmured aloud. Tony spun around. He must have not liked what he saw, because he grabbed my shoulders. I could read his lips saying, "Are you okay?" but I still could not hear him.

_Take you home. It will all be okay soon. You must go to sleep now._

_That sounded like a really good idea. I suddenly realized how tired I was. The fuzzy sensation began to grow, I felt warm and comfortable like I was wrapped in a blanket made of the softest down. I could still see Tony, he was turning to Loki, shouting, turning back to me, shaking my shoulders….back to Loki, and then I slipped into blackness. Nothing but sweet, calming, black._


	4. Chapter 4

"Sweet dreams?"

"No, I was having a nightmare. There were zombies eating people in the streets, a green electric storm, swirling fucked up clouds in the sky, and I was being taken away by this God-"

"Mmmm, that does sound like a nightmare."

"Tony?"

"Yes."

"Where are we?"

"We're home, Princess. Nothing to worry about now."

I lay in the bed beside him, looking into his dark eyes. They twinkled in the half light, and for some reason that made me feel a little queasy. I figured it must've been the alcohol still in my system. We lay together, naked, in a room I did not remember seeing before. It looked almost royal. The bed clothes felt like silk, and the walls were draped with heavy golden draperies. "What is this room?" I asked.

He smiled lazily, and let a hand trail down my bare chest to my stomach where it lingered. His fingers began to trace slow spirals. "One of my guest rooms. A change of scenery is good, is it not?"

I studied him for a moment. Something was off here…the way he talked, the glittering in his eyes. This room. Tony must have seen the doubt begin to flicker on my face, because he crawled on top of me and began to kiss me then, deep slow kisses. Erotic kisses, The kind I could drown in. I moaned into his mouth as his hands slid up my arms and clutched at my hands, pressing them down into the mattress. He slowly drew away from me, his full pouty lips curling up at the corners. And that was when I knew for certain, that this was not real. That was not Tony.

"Who are you?" I breathed. I tried to pull my hands away, but he would not let me. He held them in an iron grasp. "Let me go!"

The imposter laughed. A tittering, mischievous laugh. When he spoke it was not with Tony's voice, but with his own. "Do you not know me, girl? Am I not the one you want to lay with?"

"Loki!" I cried, recognizing the voice from my head. "How did we get here? Why am I even here?"

He smiled with Tony's face, and that infuriated me. "You are here to please me," he said. "And to make my enemy very angry. I am sparing you from all the death upon your planet, you should be groveling at my feet in deepest gratitude."

"Where are they?" I demanded.

"Your precious Avengers are fighting the armies of the dead, my sweet. I would like to call them _my _armies of the dead, but the truth is they are not. I made a deal with another, that you will meet soon enough. HE wanted to own that planet just as much as I did, but I wanted SUFFERING first! So much suffering. I learned a little something about the elements of storm from my dear _brother." _He spat the word out like it tasted bitter in his mouth. "That was my contribution. He brought the dead back to fight, to kill. Together we will take your pathetic planet and make it our own. But much blood will be spilt first." Tony/Loki closed his eyes and leaned his head back, as if in a very pleasant thought. When he looked at me again, his eyes were emerald green.

"I don't want to be here," I said quietly. "Why the fuck did you spare me?"

He shook his head as if I were an idiot. Maybe I was. "You belong to him. Whether _you_ understand that or not is irrelevant, _HE _believes it to be so. Stark thinks you are his, and taking you from him is just icing on so much cake, as you say. He is going to hear you and I in his mind as he dies. As the dead are ripping his heart right out of his metal chest and eating it in front of his eyes, he is going to hear you begging me for more, and know his pretty pet is no longer his."

"Fuck you," I growled. "I don't see that shit happening. Tony was right, you are a little fuck."

Loki changed then, back to his own pale perfect skin. He was beautiful, and terrible. His eyes darkened to storm clouds, and he slapped me across the face, HARD. I felt my lip split and the coppery taste filled my mouth. His teeth were bared in a feral catlike way, and he shoved himself inside of me with so much force that I screamed out. Something was tearing, I was bleeding, and he pressed himself harder inside me.

"Now," he said huskily, lust taking over and mixing with anger. "See your precious ones." And my mind felt swimmy again, that wine drunk feeling came over me. I could feel him pounding in and out of me, I could hear myself screaming from the pain as he raped me. But in my minds eye I saw Tony in his Iron Man armor, the metal suit covered in blood and grime. He was firing bullets into the brains of the corpses around him, heads were exploding everywhere. So much fucking death. And for a moment he stopped, cocked his head like he was listening, and then lifted his face plate. He called my name….

"He can hear you, little one, hear you becoming mine. Scream for him some more," Loki growled into my ear. "_SCREAM_!" And I did. I hated myself for doing it, but I couldn't stop. I hated what was happening, what I was seeing in my own head. I screamed Tony's name for all I was worth.

A corpse grabbed Tony's arm. He threw it back against a storefront as another lunged

at his neck, and yet another went for his face, and another, they just kept coming. A waitress in aripped and bloodied uniform missing half her face. Men in business suits with entrails hanging out and dragging the ground. They caught on debris from the destruction, and while more intestines spilled out, it did not slow them down. One, a teenage girl, had half an arm, it had been chewed and ripped off at the elbow. The ragged edges still dripped blood, and the white bone shined in the streetlamp. Her eye was hanging from its socket, and her blonde hair was stained a dark mahogany, as little pieces of something congealed on her brow. She opened her mouth in a yawning way, her body jerking forward, and then bared her fine white teeth to bite at Tony's suit. He shot her point blank in the head. His brow was furrowed and his jaw set in a grim line.

I knew he could hear me in his head. I sobbed and choked out his name again, "Tony," as Loki continued his assault upon my body. Loki's breathing was heavy, his eyes electric….and he was smiling maliciously.

"LOKI!" Tony shouted as he blew the heads off of a dozen more shambling zombies. A collective groan rose up from the crowd. "I'm going to tear you apart! GOD OR NOT!"

Someone shouted from in front of him, and the hoard turned, as if one mind, as arrows began to pelt the air. They rained down into another dozen craniums with a thunking squishy noise. Bodies fell all around him.

"Thought you could use a break!" Clint yelled from his perch in a window. Tony nodded at him and for once did not have a witty comment. From further up the street I could see Hulk. He was hanging off the side of a building, out of the range of the throng of hungrily biting zombies. He would reach out a strong huge hand, scoop one up, and slam it headfirst into the side of the building, with enough force to make the things head literally explode. Then he would scoop up another. I was reminded of King Kong swatting at airplanes. Despite what was happening to me, seeing them kicking ass like this made me smile.

"We are going to win," I said dreamily.

Suddenly my vision of them began to blur. I had no idea where the rest of the team was, but they seemed to be handling the zombies quite well. The only problem was the non ending masses of them that just kept swarming. I was lost in the thoughts, trying to keep from feeling what was happening to me, when the wall behind us blew inward, showering our bodies with fragments of golden cloth and brick. Loki pounced off of me like a cat, ready to attack to defend it's prey.

"LOKI!" a deep voice boomed. "Why must you do these things?" Thor stepped into the room, his hammer in his hands. He pointed it at his naked brother. "You must answer for your actions, BROTHER!"

"Do not call me that," Loki hissed. He still looked angry and half crazed, but there was something else there. A deep seated seething hatred, and an almost childlike huff. "What I have done is none of your affair!"

"Earth and her people _are my affair!" Thor thundered. "How have you done this? Raising the dead is not in your powers. That is high magic!"_

_As he questioned his brother, advancing with Mjolnir, his hammer, raised, Thor motioned for me to get up. I found my dress beside the bed and slipped into it. My thighs were sore from being forced apart, as were other areas of my anatomy. I felt like I had been trampled by a horse…and then fucked by it. I shuddered. _

"_She is going back with me, and so are you. You must fix what you have done. Stop this attack. Innocents are dying!" Thor cried._

_Loki snorted (like a horse). "There are no innocents, you fool! They are just cattle for the slaughter, not long for this world at all. They live for mere seconds, why prolong their suffering? They are like ants to us!"_

_I had backed away from the bed, a bed I hoped I never saw again. I stood in the rubble of the wall, sore, humiliated, and pissed. "We may not live for as long as you. We may not be gods. We may not have magical powers the way that you do, and conjure up Night of the Living Dead in the flesh. We are humans, and we deserve to be part of this universe just the same way YOU do. Some of us may be suffering through our short lives, but not all of us. Some of us are just here for the fucking party," I snarled at Loki. "What you just took from me was mine for the giving. You should have asked nicely. When you are laying broken on the ground being eaten alive by old decaying women with dull dentures, I'm going to remember what you fucking did to me."_

_His green eyes glittered and he laughed. "I do love it when you are angry. I can smell your venom from across the room, and it is delicious. If I had asked nicely, would you have been so willing?" Loki did not wait for an answer. Still smiling, he looked back to Thor. "I cannot stop this, Odinson. Nor will I tell you how I have done it. The dead will continue to rise and your Avengers cannot fight them all. The trap was set, the bait was taken. Death is on its way for them. Leave them to their war while you still can, or they will seal your destruction."_

_Thor lowered his hammer, and came to stand beside me. "I cannot, brother. You know I cannot. I serve these people, and I will help them anyway that I can. If you will not tell me how to stop it, I can only go back and find a way myself."_

"_There will be nothing to go back to!" Loki screamed. "Do you not understand that?"_

"_You act as if you fucking care," I spat. "Refuse to call him your brother, and then start acting like he needs to stay with you and blah blah blah. Don't be such a whiney little bitch."_

_For a moment he looked like he wanted to tear my throat out with his teeth like one of the cannibal corpses back home. But then his face split into a genuine grin. "You have such a life spark! I will do my best to keep you alive," he winked at me again. "You will prove to be very fun in the future, I believe, but for now go back to your planet and watch your friends die. Like you watched your mother." And with a wave of his hand, the world became fuzzy and once again blackness began to take it's sweet hold on my senses. _

_All I could think as I fell once again into that strange dream state was, "Well, you fucking little prick."_


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: **_**ZOMG, thank you all that have reviewed so far. I love you all so much! You guys are fucking awesome and you make my night every single time I read a new review. And to have some really talented and awesome authors commenting is really inspiring! Keep it coming!**_

_**I have been gone for a couple of days, so sorry for being so late on this Chapter. I had some issues with it, so I hope it pleases as much as the last ones have ;-) As always it is pleasing to write. **_

_**Sorry about the italics at the end of the chapters…that was not intentional, and I am not sure why the hell it keeps happening, but I will try to keep it out of future chapters.**_

_****_**ALL ABOUT YOU**

Vertigo swallowed me like a ragged throat. I was spinning and falling and probably dying-when a strong arm encircled my waist. My descent slowed drastically.

"I have you, do not worry. I will not let you fall," Thor's deep voice said calmly.

My eyes closed. "Thank you for catching me," I whispered. "I want to go back to the others."

"I know that you do. You have a strong heart. I am very sorry for what my brother did to you, it should never have happened. He has no right to do that to anyone, but thinks that he is better than most. He can be very frightening."

I muffled a groan. Who says chivalry is dead? I didn't want to think about the shit that had just hit the fan, and how a God (of all fucking things) had just tried to rip me in half with his cock. Not cool.

Thor's feet crashed down and my eyes flew open. "Where-" I cried, biting back the words when I saw that we were back on the deck of the penthouse at the top of Stark Towers. "Honey, we're home," I said shakily as Thor sat me down on my own two feet.

A shambling mess came out to greet us. Tony smelled of strong whiskey, his eyes red and puffy. He regarded me uneasily, as if he was uncertain what he should say.

"Are you, the Master of Sarcasm-actually at a loss for words?" I asked quietly.

He sniffed and rubbed his temple. "This doesn't seem the appropriate time for one liners and bullshit," he said. "I can offer you a drink, however."

I nodded. "Accepted."

A mere fifteen minutes later I was swimming sweetly at the bottom of a peach margarita on the rocks with a twist of lime and plenty of salt…number three. I felt I deserved to drink them that fast after the bullshit I had just had to endure, and I will admit I was having a tiny alcohol entitlement issue…that is to say, I was getting hammered.

Natasha came walking back into the room, scrubbing her wet hair with a towel. She stopped when she saw me, nodded solemnly and went back to scrubbing. "I got brains in my hair," she said ruefully. "Fucking BRAINS in my hair."

"Aw, poor you," Clint said, amused. "I had to put an arrow through a dead nun's head. She was wearing a habit _and __a rosary!_ I have a feeling there may be a special place in hell for me."

Steve was standing next to the large glass door, looking out. "You are a soldier," he said seriously. "Those people are not people anymore. They are monsters. You were doing what you were trained to do, and that is to defend this country-"

"I shot a kid," Tony said simply. "You still think that is part of it, Spangles?"

Steve spun around. "You did what you had to do," he answered grimly. "None of us like it. But war is war. That is brutal honesty, Stark."

Tony leaned up against the bar and tipped his glass. "Oh, yeah, what I _had _to do. Well, what I had to fucking do SUCKED. Cause I had to shoot old ladies, and teenage girls, and a little boy who was still holding a blood spattered Tonka truck in his fucking hand, and was coming at me with his mouth open and what was probably his momma's skin in his teeth," he paused for a moment, as if remembering and then shook it off. "Yeah, Spangles, tell me all about what I _had _to do, and how it was done in the name of American freedom. Let's talk about eagles and Old Faithful while we are at it, apple pie, and fucking baseball. Let's talk about all that shit, and then let's try to talk about it some more while a she," he pointed at me, "is screaming for her life in the goddamn background because she is being fucked to death by the God of motherfucking mischief. Let's do that over drinks shall we?" He swallowed the drink in one gulp, and refilled his glass.

I was looking at him with my mouth hanging open. He regarded me with his dark swimmy eyes. "I heard you in my fucking head," he said softly. "And I couldn't save you. I couldn't save the little kid, and I couldn't save _YOU._ You were crying my goddamn name, but I couldn't do anything about it but listen, and that little fuck loved every single second. I'm not sure if he loved you more, or making me feel helpless and emasculated."

Natasha snorted. "Go ahead, Stark. Make this all about you."

He glared at her. "I have a hell of an ego, we all know that. But THAT is not at all what I meant. I _wanted _to make him stop, and I wanted to save her, but I couldn't. That is fucking killing me."

I shook my head. "Stop, please. It happened, and we cannot undo it. It's over…that part is, at least. So let's just stop and concentrate on the problem at hand."

I could tell he wanted to protest, to say something more. He also looked like he wanted to touch me, to comfort me, but I think he sensed it was completely the wrong time. I would be ready for his hands again soon enough, but not yet, my emotions were still too raw.

I ran a hand through my dark hair and sighed. "What happened in the great zombie war? Loki has made a deal with some wizard or something-they are trying to help each other take over Earth for their own sick pleasure, and Loki wants you all to suffer horribly in the process…or at least that is what I got out of the bullshit he was spouting."

Bruce shrugged. "We can't stop them. Stark flew around the city, and the report is that they are everywhere-and eating everyone in their path. And to make it harder, there are still civilians. A lot of them appear to be on top of their roofs like we are here-since there are survivors we can't just blow the whole city to hell like we would love to do. We have to take them into consideration. It looks like an end of the world movie set out there. Or the aftermath of a hurricane…you know, with cannibals." He managed a weak grim smile.

I laughed. He looked too sweet when he smiled, and if I hadn't known better, I would never have suspected there was a angry green giant inside of him, just aching to get out and fuck something up.

A bolt of that sickly green lightening suddenly struck the building across the street. Another ripped through the air seconds later, and blew out the windows in the sky rise next to it. People screamed, and a body fell, smoldering, to the street below. Curses were shouted from behind me, and without thought of their own safety they all bolted out the glass door and ran to the edge of the deck once again. A bolt made the air sizzle as it crackled by us and hit the next building.

I looked down where the body had fallen. The dead were gathering around it, eating, ripping, tearing. They pulled out smoking entrails, foot after foot of cooked intestine. _A zombie barbeque_, I thought, swallowing back the bile that was trying to betray my own guts. More curses were hissed among our group. There was another blast of lightening, and more people screamed from a rooftop not far from our own. We were looking down upon it, and saw the death that was happening there. An apartment buildings rooftop garden in ruins. A zombie on fire. Children. A mother between them and the slowly movie corpse that was coming for them, leaving flaming parts of himself on the ground he shuffled over. She had her hands up in a defensive gesture. It wasn't hard to guess that the smoking man was probably the father, struck and killed by lightening, and now reanimated. His heart burnt up in his chest, but his brain intact.

"Oh my god," I heard myself screaming. "Somebody DO something!"

Clint raised his bow and put an arrow through the man's burning head before the words were even completely out of my mouth. The children had their faces buried in their mothers floor length day dress. They were sobbing hysterically. She looked at her fallen husband, now completely consumed by flames, and then up to us. Her arms tightened around her crying babies…and she nodded her thanks. The tears began to pour down her cheeks and she moved the kids, a boy and a girl, away from their father, and back into a covered gazebo in the corner the rooftop garden.

Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I stared at her, this mother protecting her children, like a lioness protecting her cubs. I missed my own mom with a passion that made my throat burn and my chest ache. I had to chase those thoughts from my mind…

The blast behind us nearly knocked me off the deck. If Tony hadn't grabbed my hand when he did, and I had not grabbed for Natasha, she and I both would have been zombie chow. He jerked us back with one deft movement, and we all turned to see the blackened spot where the strike had hit. Another bolt crashed into the very top of Stark Tower, and bits and pieces rained down upon us. "Inside," yelled Director Fury, "NOW!" We complied like our asses were on fire, running hell bent for the door.

The strikes of lightening began to come quicker, and after retreating to the penthouse, none of us could get back outside to try to help others. It seemed Loki had found a way to keep us from helping anyone else for a while. Every time someone tried to go out, a thunderous crash would bring them back inside. Even Thor raised his hammer and tried make the storm cease, but it was no use. When he could not make it stop he disappeared into it again, determined to find his brother once more and make this end. I had a feeling we would be seeing Loki before Thor would. Whoever the fuck the God had made nicey nice with, was one badass motherfucker, and that scared the hell out of me. I think it honestly scared the hell out of the Avengers as well.

We all began to drink. It was about the only thing we could do. There seemed no end to the night, even though it should have been morning once again, the clouds had not parted and the sky was no brighter. The world was blanketed in darkness. We were cut off from the outside world, no TV, no internet.

"What we need," Tony slurred, "is some homing pigeons. They could take letters out, and if the little mother fuckers didn't get eaten, then they could bring em back…we could send one to the White house." He giggled drunkenly.

"We need one of those owls from the Harry Potter movies," Clint said groggily. He was pretty drunk already. "Owls fucking rock." He looked at Tony, and the two of them began to laugh like that was the funniest shit they had ever heard.

Natasha was leaning back on the couch, her bare feet in Clint's lap. "I am so hungry," she said. "And there is nothing in this damn place but alcohol. What the fuck to you do for food, Stark? Do you really drink your meals like everyone says?"

He stopped laughing. "Hey, I have food, fuck you very much."

"Where?" At least three people asked that at once.

"The kitchen is on another level, I just keep what I need up here." he sniffed, seeming genuinely offended. "Pallatta, the cook, she takes care of my meals."

JARVIS had been oddly silent until now. "She is here, Sir, should I send her a menu?"

"What do you mean, she is here?" Tony asked at the same time Natasha said, "God, YES." She seemed taken aback, but a loud boom of thunder brought her back to our present condition. "Does she live here?" she asked.

Tony slowly shook his head. "No…she shouldn't even be here. I told her she could bug out after the party the other night, and not come in until Tuesday. JARVIS, what is she doing?"

"She appears to be making another sandwich, Sir."

"What do you mean, another?"

"She has made many sandwiches since her return to the kitchen three hours and twenty four minutes ago."

Tony cocked an eyebrow. "That sounds sort of weird, doesn't it? Why didn't you tell me she was here? It sounds like she is in fucking shock or has lost her damn mind."

The A.I grew silent.

"JARVIS!" Tony shouted. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME SHE WAS IN THE KITCHEN MAKING FUCKING SANDWICHES?"

Still nothing.

"Son of a bitch," Tony hissed. "I didn't exactly plan on working on a damn droid when I started drinking." He stood up. "But I guess I need to deal with the cook first."

I reached up and grabbed his arm. "What if she isn't crazy or in shock or whatever? Then what are you going to do?"

He looked genuinely confused.

Natasha grunted. "Sometimes men who think the world revolves around them, forget about what is going on out their very own front door. She means, what if she is a fucking zombie, you nit."

He glared at her for a moment, and then threw his hands up in the air. "Well, we will never know till we go and look, will we?"

"Not all of us need to go," I whispered. "If she is a zombie and she came back….if even dead and unthinking, she got back in…then there could be more than just her. She could have let in others. We don't all need to take the chance of dying or worse. You guys are the only chance the world has."

"Some chance we are," Steve grumbled. He was laying back on the floor, a bottle of whiskey in his hand. Suddenly he sat bolt upright and said, "I sure could go for a sandwich." He and Clint began to giggle.

Tony closed his eyes and rubbed at his temple. He ignored their outburst of giddiness. "Do you have any idea how many people I employ on the bottom floors of this building? If she left a door open somewhere, anywhere…" , his voice trailed off. "JARVIS!" he yelled again. Still the AI was silent. "Fuck it, I'm going down there."

"I'm going with you," I said standing up on unsteady legs. He looked at me, uncertain. "Give me a gun or a Louieville Slugger or something, I want a fucking sandwich too."

"Me too," Bruce said. He was probably the only one of us who was sober. "I have a hell of an appetite right about now. Zombies or not. The rest of you stay here, I don't want to get shot in the ass by one of Clint's arrows. If it is more than we can handle, we will come running back with our tails tucked, begging for help."

Natasha shook her head and stood up. "Oh no no, Green Guy, you don't get all the fun. I'm coming with."

Fury had been silent up to this point for quite sometime. He was sitting in a corner of the room, quietly sipping something brown in a small glass. "I completely agree with Banner, but you will need another gun-that girl has no formal training." He regarded me cooly with his single eye. "No offense." He looked back to Tony. "Take Romanoff."

"I don't take offense to that, I know Im not zombie killer. I'm just hungry, so I am still going," I smiled wryly. All the while I was thinking, You can take that formal training bullshit and shove it up your ass…

Tony looked at me and grinned. "That's the spirit…but hey, if my cook has just lost her damn mind, nobody is decapitating her, or blowing her brains out, okay? She makes one hell of an omelet."


	6. Chapter 6

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: You guys, keep the reviews coming, it feeds my selfish ego ;) Actually it really inspires me and it shocks me all the damn time that so many people love this story. Thank you guys, you all rock!**

**And if you like this story, check out Discomfort by glorious anon-it is an amazingly HOT HOT HOT Avengers, Tony/OC/Loki sex triangle. I am totally addicted to it. I actually borrowed some begging from her last chapter, Ch 8, for later on in the steamy scene in this chapter. ****  
**

"I cannot believe The Cappy is drunk," Tony was saying as we walked down the corridor to the stairs. "I mean, that guy is so damn goody goody-"

"Stark," Natasha said quietly, "shut up for once. We really need to get into some kind of head space. We have all been drinking…well, all of us except for Bruce the Almighty over there," she paused and looked in his general direction.

Tony laughed. "Holy shit, you just made a Tony Stark joke."

She gasped. "I did not such thing. As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, most of us are a little bit fuzzy from drinking, and we need to get into a better head space before we go check this out. If there are zombies, then the least slip up could be a bad deal."

Bruce looked amused at the nickname, but nodded in agreement. "Take some deep breaths, think about killing zombies, and let's go do this thing."

I looked down at the bat in my hands. Tony wouldn't give me a gun, under the advice of Nick Fury-who was starting to rub me a little wrong. I am a Southern girl who had a redneck grandpa that took me hunting. I know how to shoot a fucking gun. But I digress…the baseball bat was made of metal. I was wondering if it would make a thud or a pinging sound off of a zombies skull, when Tony said, "This door is the stairwell. We have two flights to go down and then we will be in the kitchens. Everyone ready?"

We all nodded solemnly and he opened the door. The stairwell was creepy as fuck, and I know we were all thinking, this is where the shit is going to hit the fucking fan, it looked too much like a movie set…but we were all silent as we slipped down the stairs-first one flight and then another, coming to stand by a large steel door. Tony looked at me, his eyes suddenly much more sober and I could see concern in them. He put his hand up to a control pad which scanned his palm, and the door lock pulled back with an audible click that was much too loud for my liking.

As he pushed the door open, I held my breath. Nothing burst forward to grab us, no cold hands attached to decomposing bodies, no maggoty eyes…but then we were just in the door and in a hallway. We weren't even too the kitchen yet. From the other end of the corridor a light shone, and we could hear shuffling noises.

"Fuck," Tony hissed. "Nice time for JARVIS to go M.I.A on me." He began the slow descent down the hallway that seemed to take fucking forever. Finally, his hand rested on the swinging door, he took a deep breath-and pushed.

First there was nothing. The light flickered oddly, (a little too cliché, but there it was none the less), and the large stainless steel table in the middle of the room appeared to be littered with sandwiches, some made, some half made, and pieces of tomato, lettuce, onions, and cheese. Mustard was smeared everywhere…as was something I was hoping was ketchup….A loud groan made us all jump.

Pallatta was coming back toward us with something in her hands. Something that was dripping red goo everywhere. _Gods, I hope that is a fucking cherry cobbler or something, _I thought.

The cook seemed not to notice us. Placing the dripping thing on the table, she took a large butcher knife and began to chop it to pieces. Something fell off the steel table, and rolled over to my foot. It was a toe…the thing in her hands was a mutilated foot-and she was making sandwiches out of it.

It was at this time that JARVIS decided to end his silence. "As you can see, Sir," the droid said dryly, "She is in the kitchen making sandwiches."

"_Fuuuuccckkkk_," Tony groaned out.

Pallatta looked up at us then, as if noticing us for the first time. Her eyes-looked to have once been dark brown, but were now milky. Her skin was tinted a sickly unnatural color. It was apparent she was a short, rotund Italian woman, but all her color was drained, leaving her ashy. Even her short hair looked dead. There were dark circles around her sunken eyes. She cocked her head to look at us, and we saw the wound that had obviously killed her…a bite mark on her neck. No, that isn't right. It wasn't just a bite mark, vampires leave bite marks. Pallatta was missing a vast chunk from her neck. The blood that had once gushed from the wound, as her heart gave it's last flutterings in a fight for life, had now congealed all over her flowery dress.

She moved forward, still holding the butcher knife in her hand. There was fresh blood around her mouth…and I couldn't help wondering where the owner of it and the foot were. "There could be more," I shouted out in a nervous shrill voice that did not sound like mine at all.

Pallatta turned toward me then, still coming, still dead. I felt my stomach summersault…and then I saw them. Three more zombies were slowly coming out of hiding behind her. They came from around another steel table, two ambling along, and one was on the floor pulling himself by his arms. He was missing his feet. All of them were in business attire…two men and a woman. People from the offices below. Their milky eyes were vacant, like the cook, their skin the same ashy death pallor.

"JARVIS!" Tony yelled. "The suit, JARVIS, send the suit."

But the A.I had once again decided to play possum. "GODDAMMIT!" Tony roared. "What the fuck is going ON HERE?" It was then that I realized he hadn't brought a weapon. The thought that his suit would not be right there when he needed it had never crossed his inebriated mind. I swore off alcohol right then…Okay, well, let's not bullshit each other, shall we? I swore it off till the next time.

Pallatta still had me in her sites. Natasha had pulled a gun, but I shook my head at her. "What if there are more, who don't know we are here yet. Suppose they can't hear us where they are, but they could hear the echo of a shot…and what if the shot misses and hits one of these fucking tables. I don't want to be wounded here, do you?"

"I never miss," she hissed. She put the gun away and pulled out a huge military style knife. "But I agree. I will go around and flank one, you bash that bitches head in with your bat. Bruce-"

Bruce was one step ahead of her, his eyes glowing green. "If I Hulk out and there are more, they will all be drawn by the noise," he growled out, controlling his shape shifting with his breath. "I'm like the big fucking gun that we do NOT want to fire." He stood beside me with his fists drawn, staring up at a rack above the closest table. It held cast iron frying pans, copper bottomed steel pots, and a variety of other cooking implements. Bruce grinned…it was an eerie smile, the man behind his eyes leering with Bruce's sweet face. In all honesty, it was pretty fucking hot.

He sprang up onto the table, past Pallatta, (who never took her dead eyes off of what she was apparently hoping would be her next meal), and grabbed the biggest cast iron frying pan he could find. With one deft move, Bruce Banner leapt to the floor and hit one of the business men upside his head with the pan. There was a metallic noise AND a crunching sound as a skull shattered, the side of it caving inward like a crumpled paper cup. The corpses brains squirted out of his ears, his eyes erupted in his sockets. The "Other Guy" as Bruce called the Hulk, must have had a helluva hand in that swing. The zombie folded up on the floor, lifeless once again.

Natasha had managed to get around behind the female zombie. She was staring with her pale eyes, at her permanently deceased counterpart on the floor. Her head cocked at an impossible angle, bones protruded from her neck. Her skin was flayed off of her face, probably the result of tearing dead fingers, and her teeth were showing in a permanent grin where her lips should have been. Even though it didn't seem possible, she bared them even more at Bruce, a savage sound gurgling out of her broken throat. She lurked forward, just as Natasha raised her blade and brought it down with a wet SQUELCH into the back of her head. It came all the way through, and as the tip of the sharp metal punched out of her forehead, for a split second her eyes crossed like she was trying to see what the fuck that was on her face. She too fell.

I had taken a batter's stance, ready for Pallatta to make her move, to lunge for my throat. She stopped in her tracks and looked at me. Just for a moment we looked into each other's eyes, she into my blue green ones, and I into her milky dead ones…and time seemed to stand still. She regarded me with apparent interest, and her eyebrows knit together. I thought I saw something in her face, and it scared the hell out of me….something human. Like she was trying to figure out who I was, and what the fuck she was doing here. She looked down at the butcher knife in her hand and raised it up, then brought it down, in a chopping gesture. My stomach tightened, a knot formed in my throat. She was trying to remember who and what she was.

We had forgotten about the crawling zombie, silently pulling himself across the kitchen leaving a trail of nasty behind him. All eyes were trained on Pallatta, (who had once made a mean omelet). Just as the footless zombie was raising himself up to take a chunk out of Bruce's leg, Tony brought his foot forward and kicked the zombie in the side of the head. He rolled onto his back and sat up squalling like a dying cat, dark reddish black ichor projectile vomiting from his mouth.

Tony sprang back. "Not my new kicks, fucker!" he yelled and then bashed the zombie in the head with a marble rolling pin. (Leave it to Tony to find something eloquent to kill a fucking zombie with.) His forehead caved in, and he fell back with a hiss of breath and lay motionless. Just for good measure Tony bashed him one more time, and the body arched, trembled, and was still.

Pallatta brought the blade down one more time, and then bared her teeth at me. She made her move, dropping her weapon and lunging forward, hands outstretched. I swung with all the force I had in my body, and the bat connected with her temple so hard that her neck cracked as her head plummeted to the side. She staggered. Not wasting any time, I swung again. (Just to let you all know, the bat did make a pinging sound.) This time she hit the floor, and I was on her in an instant, swinging like I was going for a hall of fame record or something. By the time Tony grabbed me around the waist and hauled me back, there was nothing left of the cooks head but a pile of grisly mush. It looked like a watermelon had exploded on the floor.

"Fuuck," Tony breathed into my ear. "She's dead, babe, you did it. It's okay now."

My mouth opened wide, I couldn't fight back what was about to happen. Thankfully Tony felt it, and threw his hand over my mouth. "Shhh," he whispered gruffly in my ear, "don't you dare fucking scream. That will just sound like a dinner bell to any more that might be lurking around here. I doubt that this is all of them." His breath was hot in my ear. I moaned my consent, and swallowed the urge to scream bloody murder. I began to violently shiver instead.

Bruce came over and placed his palm lightly to my forehead. "She's clammy. Let's get some food, and get our asses back upstairs. She needs to eat and lay down before she goes into shock." I looked at him gratefully, trying not to cry like an idiot. I was a killer now.

Tony still held me around the waist, I'm pretty sure if he had let go, I would have hit the floor. The others quickly raided the kitchen and we darted back down the hallway, into the stairwell, and then stopped cold. From below us, on the stairs, we could hear the muffled groans and moans of more zombies. After being in that kitchen with four of them, that noise was unmistakable.

"Climb," Tony whispered, taking me by the hand and dragging me behind him. I complied immediately, and in a few minutes we were back on our own floor, and he was manually bolting the door. "Nice fucking time to take a vacation, JARVIS!" he yelled.

Things became a strange sort of blur….Natasha and Bruce were recounting the events from the kitchen. I ate half a sandwich with shaking fingers, but the thought of the foot Pallatta was mauling for the sake of snack food made me stop.

"You don't look good," Fury said. He was regarding me with an odd look on his face. He didn't exactly look concerned either. A small smile seemed to be tugging at the corners of his lips.

"She damn near went into shock," Bruce said. "But she is a hell of a fighter-she did a number on the cook."

"She could make a helluva omelet," I said absentmindedly, and then the water works began. I couldn't hold them back any longer.

Tony scooped me up in his strong arms and carried me away then, back into the bedroom where we had first fucked….his bedroom. He laid me on the bed, and drew the shades so I couldn't see the eerie green lightening. I tried to silence my sobs, but I kept thinking of the human way Pallatta kept looking at the knife, like she was remembering what she did, and who she was. She was making sandwiches for Cripe's Sake, and maybe they were zombie sandwiches made from human flesh, but still they were sandwiches…she had retained that much of her humanity at least. I had murdered a person.

I told Tony all of this while he sat beside me on the bed. He shook his head, "Listen, Pom Pom Queen, she was a walking corpse. The little bit of life she had left was gone. The way she dropped that knife and came at you, hun, if you had not done what you did, she would have made sandwiches out of you. You are not a murderer, you were protecting yourself…and us."

I was grateful for his words, but they didn't stop the pain. I dabbed at my swollen eyes with the bed sheet.

"Lay down," he said softly. "You need to rest. You have had enough excitement for awhile."

"Stay with me?" I asked complying to his demand. "Please?"

Tony nodded. "I will stay till you fall asleep." He laid down and wrapped his arms around my waist. I laid my heavy head on his chest, my fingers tracing delicately over the arc reactor under his shirt. He ran his hand up my side, and began to run his fingers up and down my arm…it gave me pleasant chills. My own hand drifted over his taunt abdomen, the chiseled shape under the shirt hard against my hand. I felt his stomach, and let my hand drift to the top of his jeans.

"You're supposed to be resting." His voice was thick.

"I rest better after I get off. I'm like a man that way."

Tony laughed. "You make my day every time you say something like that."

I tilted my face up toward his, and he kissed me deeply, a kiss full of the taste of his mouth. His silken tongue glided over mine, darting around my mouth, exploring, stroking my tongue. I ached for him, almost a painful dull need. He rolled over on top of me, his mouth still locked to mine, sucking my tongue slowly, sensuously. I arched my back, bucking my hips into his and he grunted softly. Erotic electricity filled my body, and as he pulled his mouth away from mine, I gasped. "I need you…now, please."

He grinned-a wicked smirk that said he was enjoying my begging for it. "Say that again."

"Please," I moaned, all decorum out the window. "Please fuck me, Tony! I need to feel you inside of me, and forget all this fucking DEATH! I need you to make me feel something more, make me come. Please!"

Tony pulled me upright on the bed, and practically ripped my dress off trying to get it over my head. His hands found my breasts, nipples tight and erect. I was so turned on my crotch hurt, the throbbing was almost unbearable. He pressed his fingers into the soft fabric of my panties, between my legs, right where I wanted him most. I gasped again, and bit his jaw. He nipped me back, and shoved me back into the bed. My panties were pulled down over my hips, and he buried his face in me, swirling his eager tongue around my clit, flicking back over it, and then taking long delicious laps at my sex, over and over. I was shaking with lust as he slipped his fingers inside me and began to stroke up into my G spot. His tongue probed and his mouth sucked, the deft fingers flexing sinfully inside of me until I thought I was going to fucking explode.

I pulled a pillow over my face to muffle my screams as I came, bucking my hips up into his face. Tony pulled my panties the rest of the way off, still lapping at my come the entire time, and then sat up, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it into the floor. That just got me even hotter. That lustful look in his dark eyes, the full pout of his lips, the bare chest, lit up by the reactor. His hair was in a sexy tussle and he began to slowly unbutton his jeans. His callused fingers pushed them over his perfect hips, and his large cock protruded, escaping the confines of his underwear. He ran his hand over it, and began to slowly stroke the shaft, all the way to the head, and then back to the base. I don't to this day know how he knew that was one of the things that a man could do to drive me wild, but I could tell that he did know. The man is a fucking professional at reading women. Tony's eyes never left my face. I stared hungrily at him as he jacked off for me. I groaned as his hand slid like silk over the velvety hardness of his cock. I was beginning to become uncomfortably aroused again, and started to squirm under him.

"Beg me," he whispered huskily. "Beg for it."

"Oh Gods, Tony," I moaned. "Please put your cock in me. I need it so bad, that it fucking hurts!"

"Beg me some more!" he ordered, putting the tip of his cock against my warm wetness. "I want to know just how bad you need it."

His hands came to rest on my hips, taking from me the power to press myself up and impale myself on him. I groaned. "I want you to fuck me like this is the last time you will ever get to fuck!" I moaned. "I NEED you to fuck me so hard we are both hurting, I want you to hurt me, use me…and when you are done, flip me over and fucking do it AGAIN!"

I could tell by the fire blazing in his eyes, that he couldn't take anymore either. He rammed into me with force enough to make me cry out in pain, I had forgotten momentarily about my encounter with Loki and how sore I was.

"Mmmmmm, dammit," I growled, tears of pain escaping the corners of my eyes.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asked, seeing the tortured look on my face. "Are you hurting-"

I interrupted him. "Don't stop," I whispered. "Please. I need you to wash away what Loki did to me."

Recognition dawned on Tony's face then as he realized what it was that I was wanting. His brow furrowed like he was remembering my screams in his head, and he fucked me with more fever then I have ever been taken with in my entire life. I honestly think back on it now, and think he was trying to take me back from Loki, reclaim me as his own. Tony growled like an animal, grinding down into me as our hips met over and over-when suddenly he pulled out of me, and quickly turned me over, grabbing one of my arms and pinning it behind my back. He plowed back into me from behind, and my face pressed into the pillow.

"Oh, fuck,baby. FUCK FUCK FUCK," he called out into the room. "You feel so damn good. Such a perfect pussy, let me see it." He slowed his roll a bit, letting go of my arm to spread me apart with his hands, and slowly, deeply penetrate me, till I thought I would cry from the pressure. One of his fingers rubbed across my sensitive clit.

"I'm going to make you come for me again," he breathed. "I don't think I am ever going to stop making you come for me…on me.." his voice trailed off as his pace quickened once again. I could feel him throbbing, and it was more than I could take. I came, like a bomb going off, fast and hard, and screaming his name into the pillow. He came seconds later, his cock thrusting and shivering, spasming inside of me in a rush. His body arched, jerked, and he cried out, a deep guttural growl that reverberated off the walls.

Tony turned me over and collapsed beside me, pulling me into his arms and burying his face in my hair. "I don't know," he murmured," how we keep marathon fucking during a zombie apocalypse, but kudos to us."

I laughed. "You took the words right out of my mouth."

It wasn't long until I felt myself drifting into a deep but fretful slumber. My dreams were full of zombies, angry Gods, green lightening, and cooks with exploding heads.


	7. Chapter 7

I awoke with a jerk from a dream about toe jam sandwiches. _Nasty_. The room was empty, but it didn't feel empty. Someone had opened the curtains up, revealing the chartreuse electric storm and vortex of clouds in the sky. I frowned. Tony closed the curtain so I did not have to see (an oddly kind gesture for a narcissist). I scanned the room but saw noone, chalked it up to being overly paranoid, and went to take a shower in Tony's private bath.

The hot water felt phenomenal. I let it pour over my sore muscles, slowly working out the kinks in my shoulders from swinging the bat so hard. My thighs were still a little sore from Loki's harsh prying hands. He was so beautiful and terrible…my mind wandered back to that meeting in his room. Why did he have to be so fucking scary?

"_If I had asked nicely, would you have been so willing?" _Loki had asked. I pondered that question as the heat from the water stirred something between my legs. Without even realizing it, my hand had slid between them, satiating the ache that had begun there. And I was still thinking about the strange God…

I jerked my hand away and pushed those weird thoughts from my mind, turned off the water and toweled myself off. Once again I felt eyes upon my skin. Goosebumps broke out across my arms…I pulled the towel tightly around me.

"Why hide yourself from me? I have already seen you like this."

I cried out, and a hand clamped over my mouth. "_HE _will come now, to check on you. You will tell him you are okay, and get rid of him. If you do not do as I say, I will kill him slowly and make you watch. Do you understand? He is vulnerable to me without his precious suit."

I nodded, and sure enough Tony came into the bedroom doorway. "Are you okay?" he called out.

"Yes," I said, my voice shaking a bit as I stepped from the bathroom. "I just slipped getting out of the shower.. I'm okay. I'm going to get dressed now."

He studied me for a moment. Finally after a painfully long moment of waiting, he nodded and went back into the other room. I felt breath upon my neck.

"That's a good little one," he said. "You were thinking about me in the shower." His lips brushed my ear. "I was quite enjoying the show."

"What the fuck do you want?" I asked spinning around to face him. "Why don't you stop this madness?"

He leaned close to me and I stiffened. Loki sniffed at my neck. "You smell frightened, my lovely. I do love that smell." He licked the curve of my neck. "And the taste, oh, the taste." His voice had grown husky. "I will enjoy frightening you and using you for a very long time."

I jerked away. "I'm not your toy."

"Do you pull away from me because you are frightened, or because I make you feel something more? Something that your Iron Man would not like very much at all?" he smiled maliciously.

I felt my face begin to burn with embarrassment. I wasn't sure what the fuck I was feeling. Extremely confused was as close as I could come to explaining it.

Loki took a moment to watch my face. His green eyes were glittering. "You see, girl, you are my toy. And we have not even begun to have our fun yet." He crossed the room. "I have to go now, but I will be seeing you again very soon." He winked and disappeared, just as the Avengers crashed through the door. I was still standing in the doorway to the bathroom, just where Tony had left me, a towel wrapped tightly around me. My eyes were huge as I stared apologetically at them.

"That little fuck was here, wasn't he?" Tony yelled.

"He said he would kill you and make me watch," I said softly. "I don't want you to die, Tony, I'm sorry. If he kills me, he just kills me. I don't want to fucking die, but I don't want him to kill anyone else because of me."

Tony sat on the bed as the others looked around the room. He patted it, and I obediently went to sit beside him. It was funny how obedient I had become when it came to this man. "Next time, I don't care what he fucking tells you, you scream bloody goddamn murder, you understand me?" He took my chin roughly in his hand and made me look at him. "Do you?"

I nodded and he loosened his hold. His eyes softened. "He is a trickster, Journey. He lies. And I mean to have his fucking head on his own staff for what he did to you, and for what he has done to our world." He slid his hand down to my neck. I shivered. The strange feelings inside of me were making me feel giddy almost. I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time. Hysterical. I took a deep breath and tried to center myself.

"Clear!" Bruce yelled from the bathroom.

"He isn't alone," I said. "He is working with someone else."

Clint sat on the bed on the other side of me. "So you have said before. Any idea who that is?"

I shook my head. "He didn't get comfy and smug enough to tell me. Just that he was some kind of high wizard or some shit. Sound like Dungeons and Dragons to me." I laughed uneasily. Because it did sound like some kind of D&D game, but it wasn't, it was real. _This is the big time, baby, _I thought.

"How's JARVIS?" I asked.

Tony looked pissed. "Someone has hacked me, and I can't get back control. It's insane, all the security codes, all the protocol, and…"

"Wait," I said, "did you just say you were hacked?"

Tony arched an eyebrow at me. "Don't rub it in, Pom Pom Queen."

I was twisting the sheet excitedly in my hands. "Don't you remember when we were-uhm-the first day and we were-"

"Fucking," Natasha said, strolling up behind Clint and setting a hand on his shoulder. "We are all adults here."

"I love it when she talks dirty and puts her hands on me," Clint grinned.

She smacked him in the back of the head. "Okay, well, _most _of us are. Anyway, what's your point?"

"My point it, that at some point in time, Nick Fury was trying to get ahold of Tony, but Tony told JARVIS to ignore the call. And when you all came barging in, JARVIS was saying that his command prompts had been overridden. Which one of you did that?"

Bruce and Steve were standing by the bed now as well. They looked at each other. "Did any of you do it?" I asked.

They all began to shake their heads. "It had to have been Fury," Tony said, catching what I was getting at. "And if he never gave back control of JARVIS…but why? And," he looked around the room, "where the fuck is Mr. Pissy One Eye anyway?" He sprang from the bed and ran back into the living room.

I jumped from the bed, modesty forgotten, and starting pulling clothes from my bag. Bruce looked at me and smiled. "I must say once again, nice view in this room," he quipped and then turned and walked away.

If I were more of a girly girl, I would have giggled like a fucking hyena and blushed…but instead, I just blushed and followed him out of the bedroom. I had fought my hysteria too much to let the Hulk make it come pouring out. Why did there have to be so many sexy fucking people in this goddamn penthouse?

Tony was standing in front of Fury, his arms crossed. The one eyed man was still sitting at the little table, sipping his drink, and looking thoughtfully out the window at the storm.

"You know," he said, "That could use a little hail, don't you think?" And with a flick of his fingers, hail began to drum down on the decking outside.

Steve winced. "That's a blow to the ego that we did not realize that you're not Director Fury."

Fury laughed. "Good boy," he said. The ice clinked in his glass as he drained it. "I am indeed not Mr. Nick Fury. But I do make a good likeness, do I not?"

"Who the fuck are you then?" Natasha growled, pulling her gun and pointing it at the imposter. "And where is Fury?"

The fake stood and held his arms open toward us. "Come now, let's not resort to weapons. I, as you can see, am unarmed."

"I wouldn't exactly call being able to create lightening and hail from thin air, not to mention making corpses rise from the dead, being 'unarmed', would you?" I asked.

The feral teeth baring smile returned to his lips. "You make a valid point, my dear. How rude of me to not introduce myself properly."

That was when his skin began to melt revealing smooth gray scales that undulated across him. His eyes became the color of lava, shimmering in their sockets. "My name," he said with a raspy voice, "is Nergaul. I am ancient as the sun, and have been here since the dawning of time. I have watched man rise and fall through the ages like a plague upon the Earth. I have enjoyed millennia of your wickedness. All acts of pain and deceit, rape and murder, torture and theft, are mine." He bowed at the waist, and tipped his face up toward ours. "I am the bringer of tempests and the ruler of all that is dead. And now, I am your God."

Steve opened his mouth, no doubt to spit out something extremely self righteous, but closed it again, and shook his head. "This is crazy," he muttered instead. "Natasha, just shoot him."

"Happy to comply," she said and pulled the trigger. The bullet blasted from the chamber, hung in midair, and then dropped to the carpet with a soft thump. "Fuck," she breathed.

Nergaul clapped his hands together with glee. "Loki said you would all be very amusing to play with," he tittered. "I am so pleased that I listened to him for once. He is a complete and utter fool, but occasionally, he has to get something right, yes?"

Tony was standing in the room with his arms crossed. "Uhmmm, no actually. Now give me back my JARVIS, and stop turning my employees into zombies, would you?"

Nergaul tittered again. "Such a forceful one," he twiddled his fingers together. "Loki really hates you. With a passion, as you say. I am afraid I cannot comply to your demands, Mr. Stark."

"He hates to be called that," I said. "Makes him feel like a dad."

When Nergaul grinned, I was not surprised to see rows of sharp little razor like teeth poking nastily out of orange tinted gums. He flicked a forked tongue out at me for a moment. "Ah, and he has told me much about you. He was very right about your life spark. Drinking the essence of your fear will be quite delicious."

"That shit is honestly starting to creep me out," I countered. "All you fucked up Gods what to talk about is "smelling my fear", and "tasting my essence". That is not how you pick up a woman, you know. Aren't you supposed to be all knowing?"

Nergaul shook his head. "No, that's the Other God," he crossed himself and spit in the floor. The spot began to sizzle. Once again, not surprising.

Steve just about lost composure then. "Son of a BITCH!" he roared. "This has gone far enough! I am tired of all the incessant blasphemy-"

Nergaul put up his hand. "Son, I am older than your God, and twice as vengeful. I do not want to get into a debate about whose god is whose, that would just be dull. I would rather play a little game."

"What kind of game?" Steve growled, angry at having been cut off.

"How about blackjack?" Tony said. "Or strip poker? I rock at that game."

The god tittered again. "No, no, nothing like that. You do amuse me, Tony Stark. I do not know what Loki goes on and on about. No, those games will not do." He flicked his wrist in the air again and snapped his fingers. That sensation of falling came again, but this time there was no blacking out.

We landed on our feet in soft grass. I looked around me to see the others all standing, dazed looks upon their faces. I had done this a time or two, and my stomach didn't even flutter much this time around. It appeared that we were in some sort of field between the city and some forest.

"Where are we?" I asked.

A voice from up above me tittered and answered, "You are very close to home. I thought you would enjoy a little time among the locals. Loki will not approve, but then, who cares?" He laughed.

We looked up to see Nergaul sitting high in the branches of an old oak tree. He pointed a gnarled finger. I could see the city beyond the large field we were in. Smoke was rising from various areas, the lights were mostly out. It looked like a war zone. Stark Tower stood like a glowing beacon high above the other buildings, still lit by its own internal arc reactors.

"You must fight your way back to the Tower, to be able to stop all this. If you survive, that is. Get back home, back to the top and scream my name to the heavens. I will make it all end." Nergaul smiled his razor smile, and disappeared. "If you want your world back, you must do this. I will be watching," his disembodied voice echoed and faded away.

"Anyone else reminded of the Cheshire Cat?" Clint said softly.

"Yeah," Tony answered. "And he was mad….but we are all mad here." He came up behind me and put his arm around my waist, hugging me tight to his side. "Looks like we get to find out just how superhero we are, without all the suits and weapons and hype."

"Fuck," I said. "This is going to hurt a little."


	8. Chapter 8

"Nergaul. Where the fuck do you think he came from?" Clint asked. "Smart mother fucker. He took the form of Fury just to get us all together, and it worked. And now he has dumped us on the outside of a zombie infested city, AND given us instructions knowing that we will have to follow them, cause where the hell else are we going to go?"

Tony smiled wryly. "We need to find something we can use as weapons before wandering off into that death trap. The only weapon we have is Hulk, and we can't use him, because he is too loud. Catch 22."

Bruce kicked his toe in the dirt and scowled. Not being able to Hulk out to help his friends was beginning to weigh him down. Not to mention all the self control it took to keep himself in check. I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He looked at me gratefully. There were dark circles around his eyes.

_Poor guy._

We stood side by side on a grassy hill overlooking the city, a small army. Even in the darkness from the storm, we could still see a few cadavers wandering aimlessly where the blacktop began, but they had not noticed us. They moved with slow jerky movements, their seemingly unseeing eyes staring blankly at each other. Occasionally one would gnash its teeth at another, and then they would look like two animals on a standoff, only to wander past each other like nothing had happened. All humanity gone.

A creek was running through the park we were in. It meandered under a bridge and then on around a bend. I headed for the bridge, thinking that possibly underneath it there might be some homeless person's belongings or washed up trash that could be useful. The assumption proved right. I used my now worthless cell phone (no signal of course) to see around me. I couldn't call for help, but it was a handy flashlight in the blackness under the bridge. I nearly tripped over a dented baseball bat, much like the one I had bashed Pallatta's brains in with. I shivered. Natasha found a rusted crow bar that she handed to Clint, and something that looked like it might once have been part of a car. There were various things laying around that we could make primitive weapons out of until something more useful crossed our path. Just having something in my hand made me feel a little less vulnerable, and like a child holding a security blanket or a lovey, I found comfort in the old rusted piece of metal in my hands. I had given Tony the bat.

"Are we ready for this?" he asked.

I shook my head no. "But we have no other choice, so let's do this thing."

"Stick together," Steve said. "No matter what happens, we need to stay together as a team. We have a better chance of getting back to the Tower, and to safety that way."

"Nice pep talk, Captain Obvious," Tony mumbled under his breath. I was the only one who heard him, and I elbowed him in the side. He grimaced. "I'm telling you, I am starting to like this rough shit."

"My God, even facing a city full of walking dead you are still being a perv," Natasha said. "Talk about a one track mind."

"Hey, I have a very amazing mind, thank you very much," Tony said, completely dead pan. "But my cock, does tend to have a beautiful mind of it's own." He bit his lip and looked at her.

"Fuck you, Stark," she said, a small smirk on her face.

"That is the general idea behind that statement," he said.

Clint looked amused. He had probably heard this back and forth bullshit a million times. Natasha was incredibly beautiful, and Tony had never managed to bed her, which had to be a blow to his ego. Nonetheless, Clint said, "Are you two going to shut the fuck up before the zombies hear us and decide to come to dinner?"

Tony hung his head in mock shame. "Sorry, Dad." Natasha snorted. He looked up at her and cocked an eyebrow. "Called him that before, have you?"

I shook my head. Tony was such a playboy, and he had managed to wrap me around his finger, like so many before me. I wasn't the first, and it pained me just a little to think I probably wasn't the last…if we made it through this that was. I let those foolish thoughts fall away, and concentrated on the task at hand. Getting into the city without becoming chow. Tony Stark would just have to wait until later.

Together, just as Steve had ordered, we thrust ourselves forward into that haunted place. The grass turned into blacktop, the trees into storefronts. The place was deserted, and foreign, not at all the city we had loved. Not the city we knew. It stank of rotten flesh and ozone from the crackling lightening. The smell of things burning would reach us when the wind changed direction. We crept silently through the streets for several hours, occasionally seeing one or two zombies, but managing to maneuver around them. Around every corner we expected to see a hungry mob, but we kept getting lucky. I was beginning to wonder if that was coincidence or Nergaul, just building up our confidence so he could knock it out from under us.

Finally we found what we had been tensed up waiting for. We had hit the alley ways. The closer to the cities interior we got, the thicker the infestation. The first pack of the dead we ran into was small and we dispatched of them quickly. The second was not as easy. We were sneaking quietly up an alley, when they appeared at the end. I can remember the number, because it will always stick out in my mind. Thirteen. There were thirteen, most of them men, a few women, and two teenagers. They came at us with all the force they had. I joined my new friends, in this intimate battle, bashing in skulls as fast as I could. Bruce hit one, an old man, over the head so hard that his face split down the middle. (I suspect the Hulk inside had something to do with that.) Tony took out one of the women, hitting her in the head with the baseball bat, and knocking her sprawling into a male cadaver. They went over in a tumble of graceless arms and legs. She did not get up, but he did, snarling like a wounded animal. Natasha buried a sharp piece of metal in the back of his skull.

One by one they went down, but the sound of the fighting had brought more. Another group of them crept into the alley behind us, forcing us forward, just hoping and praying the coast ahead would be clear. It wasn't, but there were only a small handful, and we were able to fight them off easily, and turn down another alley. We could hear them coming behind us, more and more, and to make matters worse, the front of the alley was closed off. Trashcans were piled high…it looked like someone had tried to barricade themselves in. Or something out. Tony grabbed a door knob and yanked, his teeth gritted together, preparing for pawing and clawing dead hands from beyond the doorway. The door gave, but there was only blackness. We ran inside, slammed the door behind us, and pressed ourselves up against the wall, panting in terror and from exertion. The door had two large prongs for sliding a something into, and Tony picked a board up that was leaning against the wall, and slid it home, locking the door.

"Glad they forgot to lock up when they went out," he panted.

I shone my light, and the others did the same, scanning the room. It was some kind of warehouse, but it did not appear to have been used in years. Just one big empty room, with the scattered remains of the homeless who had lived there at one time or another. A dirty mattress and covers sat in one corner next to an old couch with springs sticking out of the cushions.

"Maybe we should rest for a moment," Bruce said between breaths. "Try to get to the top of this building and get our bearings? We had to run down so many different twist and turns, that I'm not sure where the hell we are. In a part of town I don't recognize, for certain."

Something banged at the door. It echoed throughout the large empty space. More banging, and scratching, as old ragged fingernails tried to claw their way in. I shuddered, and was thankful that all the windows were up high to take full advantage of the sunlight. They hung on loose hinges, some without glass, but they were too high for any zombie to climb through.

"As long as there aren't any other doors we are okay here for now," Steve said. He was also looking up at the dirty warehouse windows. "We need to check the front."

A small office sat in the front of the building, unnoticeable when we first made our way in from the alley. The door was closed and the shade on the window drawn. There was one other door to the outside, which was locked with a large bolt lock, and a huge metal bay door. It was also locked. So far so good. But the office made me nervous. And what made me even more nervous was the shuffling I could hear beyond it. I was hoping that was just zombies idly walking past in the street beyond, but I wasn't so certain.

"Maybe it's just a big fucking rat," Tony whispered in my ear. I jumped and stifled a scream, and then decked him in the shoulder. He grunted and grinned at me. "Fine, be that way," he said. "How about opening that door, Pom Pom Queen."

"Fuck you, Old Man, you do it." I was not about to open that damn door. "I have more fucking sense than that. Why don't we just leave it alone and try to find our way up to the roof?"

"There might be weapons in there," Natasha hissed. "Doubtful, yes, but possible. If that _is _one of those things, then it sounds like there is just one. We can deal with that."

And without warning, she kicked the door open.


	9. Chapter 9

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: Hey everyone, I apologize for the time it took to upload this chapter. I spent a couple of days sick, BLAH. Anyway, as always thanks for the reviews, I really appreciate them. It helps me become better, and see what you guys are loving about the story or not loving.**

**Eliana123: You are totally right, I dropped the ball on that last chapter. It is all supposed to be from the OC's POV, but it did not come off sounding like that! I tend to lapse back into third person without realizing it, as well as screw my tenses all up. I just am not as diligent with my editing as I should be. Thank you! ****J**

**Now here you go, Chapter 9. It's a long one, and has some pretty dark themes about it, and some gratuitous sex. So fare warning...hope you all enjoy!**

I swear to every culture's God or Gods, that my heart stopped for just a moment. The door flew open with a crack that sounded like a bullwhip. More fucking noise is certainly what we needed right then. The room was beyond dark. There was no window, only inky blackness, and my eyes didn't want to adjust. Maybe my terror just wouldn't let them.

The decaying corpse fell out of the room on top of Natasha before any of us knew what the fuck was happening. He came out of the black, almost like a magic trick. _Now you don't see me, now you do. _She yelped, the look on her face registering more disgust than fear. The corpse had to have been dead in that room for at least a week or two before the weird reanimation had woke him up. In the heat of a closed warehouse, with plenty of bugs and various other things to keep him company. His eyes were gone, eaten away no doubt by Tony's "big fuckin rats". Parts of his face seemed to be melting away, viscous fluids oozing out of the empty sockets. He was in that nasty stage of decomp that they can't get enough of on shows like C.S.I. And the smell…

"FUCK," Natasha yelled as she shoved the sightless zombie off of herself. "He stinks so goddamn bad! Somebody kill that walking pile of maggots!"

As if on cue he opened his gaping maw, and a projectile stream of maggots gushed from his mouth. We could hear flies buzzing in the room beyond.

"There better be a fucking Uzi in there!" I said, gagging. "This is so not worth a knife and a stale sandwich."

The eyeless cadaver was following the sounds of our voices. When I spoke he turned in my general direction and bared his fly crusted teeth. I felt a wave of disgust and pity. He was easy enough to avoid, but we had to kill him. We couldn't have him wandering around in the dimly lit warehouse, bumping into shit, and smearing little greasy pieces of himself everywhere. That struck me as funny, and as I raised my rusty iron bar above my head, a fit of giggles erupted from my chest. I couldn't hold them back. I was aware the others were looking at me like I had finally lost it, and fuck, maybe I did for a few minutes. I brought the bar down on his head, and it caved like an overripe melon, something that seemed way to mushy for brains squirted out of his ears. I suppose they probably were brains, stewed from the heat.

The blind melon went down. I stopped the giggling, pulled out my cell phone flashlight, and went into the nastiest rank ass fucking room I had ever been in my life. And I have been some pretty seedy places…places where your feet stick to the floor, if you know what I mean. Fuck it, I figured if I had lost my mind, I might as well have something to show for it. I began to open the drawers on the desk and rifle through the contents.

Tony came into the room. "Journey?" he said softly. "Are you okay?"

"Never fucking better," I said. I realized I sounded hostile, but at the moment I didn't give a shit. _Always leave em guessin, _my momma used to say.

He didn't ask me again, just nodded, and started going through drawers with me. Within minutes we had found a 45 and some clips. Then we turned around and gasped.

On the wall behind the desk was a hanging rack. And on that rack were four beautiful katanas. I was overjoyed.

"I don't have to risk tetanus to kill a zombie anymore," I said gleefully, pulling one of the swords down. I realized they might be reproduction rip offs, just hanging for show, but when I pulled off the sheath, I saw with great relief that the blade was razor sharp.

"Who the fuck were these people?" Tony breathed. "A dead body in a warehouse, gun and ammo in a drawer, and super sharpened Japanese swords on the wall. What the hell?"

Natasha came in the room and took down a sword herself. She turned it over in her hands, and smiled.

"These are authentic," she said. "I think I might enjoy zombie slaying a little more now." She threw the other two to Clint and Steve.

Tony still had the gun in his hand. He looked at Bruce. "So you wanna rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock for this thing?"

Bruce cocked his head. "I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but I will take your bat and you keep the gun." He smiled. I had a feeling he was thinking about how hard he had hit that last zombie. I was pretty sure if he could just manage to let out a little of the Hulk without loosing control, that he could knock heads clean off of them with that bat.

"Let's find a way to the roof," he said.

That part was easy. The stairs were in a corner, rusted and creaking, but they took us up to the door leading out onto the roof smoothly enough. The door wasn't locked, and we went outside once again, standing in the flashing lightening and just enjoying being able to breathe without the smell of rot stifling us. The tar papered roof was sturdy, only a couple of sunken in patches that we avoided. We could see Stark Tower, our beacon of hope. As corny as that shit sounds, it was true-that damn tower had become a symbol of life in a very dead city. We were still a good piece away from it, but closer than we had been when we started out.

"Here's a dumb question," Clint said. "Does anyone have any idea what time it is?"

Bruce looked at his watch. "8pm," he said in his soft way. "It's self winding." He held up his wrist.

"Thank goodness for old school," Tony said.

I snickered. "Who you callin old school, Old School?"

He arched his eyebrow and tried to look put off. "Listen, little girl, I am not old, just matured, aged like good Scotch. Damn, what I wouldn't do for a good Scotch right now."

"Ooo, then it's too bad I don't have a bottle in my pocket," I said. "What would you do for a-"

"Wait, wait. Matured?" Bruce interrupted, feigning confusion. "Whoever said Tony Stark is mature was lying to you. Oh, yes, _you _said that." He pointed at Tony.

"Is this Rag On Stark Day?" Tony said.

"Now _that _would be a great national holiday," said Steve. "I could get behind that one 100%."

"There is a joke in there somewhere," Tony mocked. "A gay one."

While all this bantering was going on behind us, Clint, Natasha and I had walked over to the edge of the building and were looking down at the handful of zombies that had remained in the alley. The ones that could still smell fresh meat in the warehouse. We walked along the edge of the roof, looking down. A rusted out fire stairwell led down the building into a much smaller side alley. There were zombie's there too, but just a few. One looked very familiar. She was staring blankly straight ahead without moving, the soft colored dress she was wearing seemed to float around her. She looked ethereal in all this chaos, with other dirty and ragged corpses walking around behind her. She seemed to have no blood on her like the others. She looked like….

"Mom?" I yelled, and before I even realized what the fuck I was doing, I was on the rickety fire escape. She was looking up at me now, her mouth slack. Her black hair was tied back in a bun on the back of her head…fly away hairs floated around her face. The other zombies had seen me now, and they waited, snarling and snapping at each other for their next meal to descend those last few steps.

My saving grace was the ladder at the end of the stairwell that had to be let down. It was so coated with grime and rust that I couldn't get it to go. I kicked at it with my foot trying to get it to fall. A shot rang out, the bullet whizzing past and knocking down one of the walking dead that had been clawing at the air.

"Journey!" Tony yelled from above me. Something that sounded like real fear was in his voice. I decided my mind was playing tricks on me and ignored him. "Stop!" he called again. "Don't do this, PLEASE!"

My only answer was with my mother, in her eyes. Something inside me was telling me this was stupid, she was dead, she didn't know me anymore, I was only warm flesh to her now. Meat for the taking. I couldn't stop. I need you all that might be reading this now to realize that I know I put the entire team in danger, but I could not stop. If it was your mother, could you?

The fire escape came loose for a brief moment and then stuck again. Just a few more feet and I could just say fuck it and jump the rest of the way. She was still standing in the same spot staring up at me. More zombies were shambling down the alley toward us. I heard Tony roar above me, "GODDAMNIT!" and he began to fire. The stairwell was shaking, as the others hurried to me, to stop me, to help me…I didn't know and I didn't give them time to get there. I climbed down the length of the ladder, and jumped.

I came down hard, my foot twisting under me, and I fell to keep it from popping. I fell at my mother's feet. She turned her gaze downward to me now, and I saw her pupils were dilated. The snarling and groaning around me intensified, but every time it would get close a shot would ring out and the zombie would fall away. I got to my knees, never taking my eyes off of hers. We had the same colored eyes. She began to reach for me.

"Momma," I choked out. The tears were streaming down my face. I didn't care if death was coming for me, I just wanted to feel her touch again.

Natasha, Clint, and Steve were on the ground now. I could see them out of my peripheral vision, looking for all the world like misplaced samurai, lopping heads off right and left. "I was right!" she called out to them. "I do enjoy killing zombies more now!"

"Stark!" Steve yelled. "Stay up there! Cover us! Bruce, stay on the scaffold, we will need you in a minute! Clint, LOOK OUT!"

I didn't turn to see what they were doing. I barely registered their voices. My mother's hands were on my shoulders. I stood, and let her wrap her arms around me pulling me into an embrace. "Momma," I cried, "I am so sorry. I never meant to leave…I wanted to stay, but I couldn't."

She held me tight against her. I could smell her perfume, lavender and orange blossoms. She always smelled like that as far back as I can remember. Her only response was a slight groan deep in her chest, her breathe on my face like a whisper of affection. A mother's promise…and then I felt her teeth on my cheek.

I gently pushed her back then, knowing now what I had known all along. Her eyes were not blank anymore. There was no life left in them, but the fire of hunger burned in their depths. Tears poured down my face as she came at me again, and I once again softly pushed her back. She began to reach out for me again.

"Journey!" Natasha screamed out. "MOVE!"

"NO!" I screeched at her.

"She is NOT your mother anymore, girl!" Clint yelled. "You have to move!" He grabbed my shoulder and tried to pull me back.

My hand felt the sheath I had tied to my belt loop. I pulled the katana out, and brandished it at him. "She is _my _mother. So FUCK YOU, if you think I'm moving. I will do this _myself._"

I don't know what Natasha saw in my face that made her shove Clint back, but whatever it was, she apparently understood it. "There's more coming," she said to him. "Leave her too it, and let's just dispatch as many as we can."

My mother had her arms held out toward me again, but this time, it was not an embrace she was seeking. Probably never was. Her teeth were bared, and she didn't look like my momma anymore. "I love you, mom," I said softly through the tears. I held the katana up again. The lightening flashed and glinted off of its sharp blade….

The next happened very fast, and I will not tell you all of it. I just can't write it down. Not yet, probably not ever. I remember the yelling, Tony yelling from up above for us to get our asses up there, Steve yelling at Bruce to shove the ladder down _NOW_, Natasha and Clint both grabbing me and telling me it would be alright…too come with them. Murmured apologies and meaningless noise. Bruce's eyes were green and shining in the dark like a cat as he waited for us to all get on the ladder, and with one heave he pulled us up. Zombies were groaning under us, clawing at the place where we had just been, angry that we were out of their reach. Within seconds we were back on the roof, and that's when I fell down. I just couldn't move anymore. I couldn't even open my damn eyes. I didn't want to see any thing. Strong arms picked me up, and I recognized the scent of Tony as I buried my face against his shoulder. He carried me back into the warehouse, and put me on the old dusty mattress. I didn't care, I didn't even protest, just fell into a deep sleep.

I awoke from a fit of nightmares. Rain was coming down, I could hear it falling outside the broken windows. I wondered idly if zombie's had enough sense to come in out of the rain. That was another of my mother's expressions. The thought of her made my insides tighten up. Suddenly I felt dirty and the rain seemed to be the only thing that would take that away. Everyone else was asleep I saw, as I stiffly stood up and took off my clothes. I crept up the creaking old stairs, hoping that I wouldn't wake them up, and went back onto the roof.

The rain was warm. It felt refreshing as it began to wash away all the pain that had settled into my stiff muscles. It was like standing in a waterfall in some desolate land. I ran my hands over my tired body, opening my mouth to the heavens and drinking greedily. I looked at my tattooed sleeves on my arms. One of those had been for my mother, as if putting it in ink upon my skin would prove my love. Maybe at that time it was the only way I knew how. I sobbed and scrubbed at my skin with my hands, begging the rains to make me forget, make me forget…please, just let me fucking FORGET…

I fell to my knees once again on that black topped roof. My face was buried in my hands, my tears mixing with the rain. It drummed the roof around me, thrummed in my ears, and masked the sound of the person who had walked up to me. I jumped when his hands touched me. I couldn't look up to see who it was, the rain got into my eyes and temporarily blinded me. I saw his boots and knew-in an instant I was on my feet and pounding my fists into his chest.

"Was it you?" I screamed above the drumming rain. "Did you send her here?"

Loki grabbed my wrists to stop my assault. "No. There was no sport in that. I am a trickster, my dear, and a cold hearted one at that, but I wouldn't have done that to my pet."

His words came out draped in velvet, spilling off of his silver tongue. I knew he could be lying, but I didn't think he was. So far he had been truthful with me, he hadn't bullshitted me about anything. He had been very open with his malice. The only thing he had not told me was Nergaul's name, not that it would have mattered if he had.

I tried to pull my hands away but he held me fast. "So, _you_ are telling me _you _would not have been so cruel?"

He smirked. "Oh, I can be cruel, you know that. What I am saying to you is that there was no sport in sending your dead mother, whom you did not even know was dead, to eat you. I told you I would try to keep you safe," his eyes looked stormy, "so that you may amuse me when this is all," he waved his hand like it was nothing more than an annoying fly, and not an electric storm of the walking dead, "done."

I glared at him. "Fuck you, Loki. I don't need compassion from you. Let me die."

He pulled me hard against him. "Death will not come for you, girl." His lips brushed mine, and an electric current shot through my body. Not the kind when lovers kiss, that little thrill of electricity that let's you know it is right. This was the kind of shock that happens when you stick your tongue to a light socket. The wrong kind …it hurt but tingled nicely in all the right places. "Not as long as I can stop it. You will learn to want me, to love me, to fear me. I can give you so much more than these mortals, you will see."

"I will never love you," I growled.

Loki laughed, his hands letting go of mine and sliding over my rain slicked body. I was not surprised to see that he was not wet at all. I pushed against him, but he held me tighter. I slapped him across the face, and was answered by a crushing kiss, so hard, I could practically hear my lips bruising. His tongue slid deliciously across mine, more electric current flowing through me, as his free hand slipped easily between my soaked thighs and into the hot wetness between them. I moaned, and tried to pull away again. His fingers easily found that bundle of nerves and began to stroke my clit with harsh unyielding fingers. He laughed into my mouth, and then bit my lip hard enough to draw blood, as I groaned and ground against his hand.

"Damn you," I hissed, tears still sliding down my cheeks. Anger, hurt, want, pain, lust…all these things filled me from the core all the way out, radiating from me like fallout.

"We are damned together," he said softly, his malicious green eyes looking hungrily at me. "I told you I would make you want me." Two fingers slid inside of me, and my knees tried to buckle. He laid me down on the roof, and propped himself up on one hand, as the other continued to fuck me with complete abandon. His thumb circled my clit, producing wave after wave of pleasure. _And I haven't even come yet, _I thought.

Loki brought his mouth biting and teasing onto my nipple, and I cried out from the pain. The lust within him oozed, I could smell the sex on him, and it made me ache even more. I didn't know what the fuck I was thinking, what the fuck I was doing. This being had raped me, ripped me apart, caused an electrical storm that cut all the power in the fucking city, while his counterpart woke the dead and made them hungry. And here I was on a goddamn rooftop letting him finger fuck me….

With all my might I shoved the god backward, catching him off guard. He had been so caught up in my flesh he hadn't even seen it coming. His retribution was swift as he back handed me, splitting my lips, and shoved me back onto the tar paper. I cried out, and he held my arms down and buried his face between my legs then, licking and sucking, and biting. He was not like Tony. Loki hurt me, but it felt so fucking good, and I couldn't stop the tremors that began to erupt within me. I fought with all my might not to come. Blood was filling my mouth from my lips, pain was all over me, the rain was pouring down harder than ever, splashing up from the roof and pelting us with hard stinging drops. He let go of one of my arms, perhaps just to see what I would do, and shoved my legs farther apart. His mouth was relentless-I grabbed a handful of his jet black hair and pulled as hard as I could trying to pull his face away. He did not let up, but groaned deep in his chest, huskily, seeming to enjoy the pain I was inflicting on him. He let go with his other hand, and pushed his electric fingers inside of me. I convulsed around them as I came, gasping in the rain, crying out and crying all at the same time.

Loki's eyes were hazy with want, but he pulled himself off of me, and sat on his haunches. "You _are _mine, Journey. In time you will come to realize that."

I rolled over onto my side, shivered with afterglow and fear, and hugged my bruised knees to my chest. "No," I sobbed. "I'm not. I won't."

It was several minutes before I realized that Loki was gone, disappeared back into his storm. I got up on shaky legs that did not want to carry me, and collapsed back onto my haunches. The rain pelted me, washing him away…but it could not wash away my guilt. I sat like that for a long time it seemed.

More hands upon my body. I slapped them away. "Noooo!" I cried out.

Tony's voice was tired, but firm. "Honey, I don't know what the hell you are doing naked on the roof, but you are soaked, and you I am going to take you back in. Okay?"

"Kay," I said, letting him help me up. My legs were still shaking as he led me back into the warehouse. Once on the landing, I grabbed the rail and stood, dripping onto the floor far below. Vertigo swept over me. "Give me a minute," I said.

He was studying my face. "What the fuck happened to you? Your lips are swollen."

Part of me wanted to lie. To just say I had fallen on the roof and face planted or something…but when I looked him in the eye, I could tell he would know I was full of shit.

"Loki," I said softly.

Tony's eyes blazed. "That fucking-"

I put my hand up to his mouth. "He…I don't even know how to begin this. He forced me to…fuck, I am not good at this shit. He held me down and made me come…and I enjoyed it." Tears threatened to spill over again. "And I'm sorry. I couldn't stop myself. After what happened, and I just wanted to stand in the fucking rain and let it all wash away, and then there he was…I guess I needed to feel something besides what I was feeling."

"So you felt it with HIM?"

"I didn't have much choice in the matter, Tony," I said wearily. "I fought it. I did. But in the end I guess I wasn't very strong, was I? Killing ones own mother tends to do that to a person. Weaken their resolve, ya know?"

Tony's face softened, but he remained quiet. Still looking at my lips. I almost thought I saw hurt in his face, but it was hard to tell. I let my fingers brush his on the rail. He didn't recoil like I was afraid he might.

"I'm sorry, Tony," I said. "Having a demi gods face shoved between my legs is not exactly how I planned to spend the fucking evening." I laughed wryly. It came out more of a hysterical cackle. "I guess now you know what kind of a fuck up I am."

He pursed his lips at me. "Look Pom Pom Queen, don't try to martyr yourself here. I'm all for doing what feels good. Just not with someone who is trying to kill us."

_He's not trying to kill me, _I thought. "Now you listen to me, Old Man. I didn't want that to happen, and I don't want it to happen again. I want this horrible shit to be over, and to go back to my old life, no matter how crappy it was."

I realized my hand was now clamped down on his, squeezing…hard. "I did something today that nearly drove me mad. When I killed Pallatta, I thought that I was a murderer…remember that? Well, guess how I am feeling about myself right NOW? I don't know if I will ever forgive myself for what that, and I sure as hell, don't need you to chastise me for the events that followed. Okay?"

Tony sighed heavily and nodded. "FUCK. Okay."

He took my hand in his, the one that was probably starting to cut off his circulation. Without warning, he shoved me hard back against the door, my arms held over my head. My breath was nearly knocked out of meas my back connected with the old iron door. His dark eyes searched mine…and then he kissed me. A kiss so hard and deep that my lips began to bleed again, and my breath caught in my chest. _Mine_, that kiss said. His hands let go of my arms, but he kept me pinned up against the door, kissing me again and again. My lips hurt, but I didn't care. I felt needed, wanted, not just claimed…even if that was what he was doing. Again.

"I want you," he growled at me. "I can't fucking help it. Your naked…it's in my nature. Natasha's right, even surrounded by all this fucking death, I'm still just a nymphomaniac." His laugh sounded a tad bitter.

"Maybe we are both just weak," I whispered. "And maybe, just maybe, this will make us stronger…for a little while. Hell, it worked the last time."

Tony pressed his forehead to mine. "I want to make you forget that angry little godboy."

"You already have," I said. I could feel his arousal through his jeans. His lips met mine again and he ground his hips into me-into that soft silky place that I wanted him to be. I let my hands trail over his chest, feeling the arc reactor under his shirt. I liked the feeling of it, it was so very…Tony. I undid his jeans, freeing him, and slipped my hand around his cock. He was hard and warm, alive in my hand. I could feel his blood pulsing and hear his breath coming quicker. I threw my leg around his waist, and he lifted me onto him, holding me up against the door. I gasped as he slid into me no more than an inch, teasing my entrance with his girth.

"Beg me," he said.

"You like that don't you," I whispered, remembering the last time we were together.

He grinned his wicked lustfull grin. His full beautiful lips pulling back from perfect teeth. "You know I do. Now give Daddy what he likes."

I smacked his shoulder, a little playful, a little rough, and then dug my fingernails into his back. Leaning forward, I slowly let the tip of my tongue play over the outside of his ear. "Fuck me, Daddy," I hissed.

He tutted. "That will never do. That was a demand."

"Maybe I need some more persuading."

He shoved all the way into me, hard, in one deft movement that left me breathless and aching. He slowly pulled back out of me, and did it again. He knew I loved it like that, and that it drove me nuts. _Damn womanizer, always two steps ahead of me,_ I groaned inwardly.

"Beg," he demanded into my ear.

"N-no chance, old man," I said, trying to sound sure of myself. My resolve was waning fast.

Tony bit into my shoulder, and I cried out. I was aware I had probably woke up everyone below us right then, but it was hard to care with Tony slowly sliding out of me and then slamming my ass back into the door…over and over….I couldn't help but imagine how spectacular his ass must look from below.

"Beg me, baby," he growled. "Do it now or I'm going to fucking stop and leave you whimpering right here."

Too emphasize his point he slowed to nearly stopping. I was pretty sure it would be really hard for him to quit completely, he liked sex more than I did, and I fucking loved it. But I was also sure his word was good, and that he really would leave me where I was. The truth was, I really wanted to beg him…I was a masochist that way. I loved it when he hurt me, I loved it when he said filthy things in my ear, and I loved it when he made me beg. Narcissistic fucker that he was, goddamn I loved to fuck him.

"Please," I moaned in his ear. "Don't stop, please."

Tony began to fuck me in his sinfully delicious way. "Tell me you like it."

I arched my back. "I love it," I choked out through the moans I was trying to keep quiet. I guess I did care a little about who heard us.

"What do you love?" His hands cupped my ass as he held me on his cock and stopped his rhythmic fucking altogether. I squirmed, trying to get him to start again. "Stop," he commanded. "And look me in the eye." His fingers squeezed, hurting, and I groaned from the pain and pleasure of it.

I complied, my eyes smarting from the pain. His dark eyes looked deep into mine. I marveled at how beautiful they were, how beautiful he was, and then silently reprimanded myself for getting too caught up. This was a game, this was sex. This was comforting each other at the end of the fucking world, that's all. Nothing more.

"Now, tell me what I do that you love?" Tony said softly. A narcissist to the bitter end.

"I love the way you fuck me, the way you kiss me, the way you hurt me. I love the size of you and the shape of you, and everything you fucking do to me," I said. "Please, please….do it some more."

The corner of his mouth pulled up in a pleased little half smile and he bit his lip. I loved it when he did that. It made him look so young and innocent…the man was anything but innocent. He began to thrust his hips forward once again. The feeling was immediate, I was going to come hard, and soon.

"Cover my mouth?" I asked, my voice husky.

Tony cocked his eyebrow at me, but complied. His hand crushed my lips as he lost himself in the fucking, thrusting, grinding of our hips coming together over and over. I felt my muscles begin to tighten around him, and he groaned….and then bit into my shoulder. I cried out, the sound muffled by his hand, as I came. My whole body shivered and convulsed in his hands. He bit me harder, and I felt him harden and jerk, his body pushing into mine.

"Fuck," he hissed, pulling his teeth from my flesh. He huffed and puffed for a moment, his eyes dilated from the sex. As he got his breathe back , he winked at me and said, "I think I love…this."

I laughed, my breathing still heavy as well, and slapped him hard on the back. "You're a real jerk."

Tony lightly rubbed at the places on my shoulders where he had bit me. "You may have a bit of a bruise…or three."

Outside lightening flashed, and down below us I could hear stirring. Suddenly I felt really exposed. "Think you could go down and get my clothes?"

"Nah, I'm too much of a jerk for that."

"What I have to put up with for epic end of the world sex."

"I don't know how epic it was, there was no applause." Tony leaned over the side of the railing. "HEY!" he yelled. "Where's my applause?"

"Fuck, Stark, you're a real piece of work," Natasha yelled back, but I could hear the smile in her voice. Applause rang out, followed by a slap and an, "OW!" and a "Stop that shit, Clint!"

"Wow, remind me to take your gun and pistol whip your ass," I sighed. "I will recant my statement, and rephrase. What I have to put up with just so I can knock off a piece during Z-Day. Now how about those clothes?"


	10. Chapter 10

"Have you _heard _the kinds of things that people on the street are saying?" His voice was low. Conspiratorial.

I moaned low….a zombie sound. "That's pretty much all their saying these days."

He snorted. "A laugh a fucking minute that's what you are."

"Okay, I'll play," I whispered, trying to sound secretive. "What are they saying?"

"When they aren't moaning and groaning they are saying that Tony Stark is the only one full of himself enough to get laid on a zombie killing mission to stop the end of the world."

"You like to say your own name, don't you?"

"It gives me needs. I'd fuck me."

"Easy, Buffalo Bill," I laughed, then tried to look serious. It was no use. "They are probably right, you know."

"I don't know, I think Clint and Natasha are doing it." Tony swatted me on the ass.

I jumped. "That's hot…I hope they are, I don't want to be the only slutty one."

"Oh no, Pom Pom Queen," Tony grinned. "I got you beat by a fucking mile."

This surreal conversation took place as we again stood on the roof. I tried not to let my eyes wander over the place where Loki had gotten me off, or over the edge of the roof where my mother lay. The never ending night was around us. We knew we still had miles to go (_and miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go before I sleep…._), to get to Stark Tower. Twists and turns…if only we could go as the goddamn crow flies. Straight ahead. We had actually considered that, but the buildings were old and we couldn't risk one of us falling through a roof somewhere along the way. Or all of us, for that matter.

The zombies had gathered in the alley ways. Oddly enough the main street in front of the building was pretty damn clear. It was odd, but it was also scary. It could mean that they had developed some sort of perceptive abilities…like they knew we were mainly sticking to the alleys. We had discussed this, not dismissing the notion, but just for a moment ignoring it. Possibly it was just Nergaul. He was a god after all, he could see us from his perch in la la land. Maybe he was their brain. A collective mind, and all him. If so, we were pretty much fucked.

"We are going to have to go out the front," Steve said. "It's the only way." His lips were pressed together in a grim straight line. He looked worried as hell.

"Then let's go," growled Natasha. "I'm sick of this. I just want to get to Stark's goddamn tower and get this shit over with. I mean, that fucking _thing _is more than likely lying to us and has something new and equally painful up his sleeve….I don't care. I just want to get out of this death trap."

I could've sworn I saw her shiver, just a tiny tremor running through her perfect body. She saw me staring at her, bit at her full lips, and then spun and walked back to the stairs.

"Besides," she called back over her shoulder, "if we stay here long enough those two are going to fuck again. I'm starting to get jealous."

"Whoa!" Tony said. "You can join in any time. Hell, bring your boyfriend. Let's make this a real party!"

"Wrong kind of jealous, you pig." Natasha's back was turned but the smile in her voice was evident. She disappeared back into the building.

Tony winked at Clint. "I think we are giving your little lady needs, Legolas."

Her tinkling laughter floated back to us. I looked over the city and sighed. From the roof we could see smoke curling up from the different areas of the city. Sometimes billowing like entire neighborhoods were engulfed, sometimes merely floating on the winds, possibly a camp fire on a roof somewhere. Somewhere that people still lived….like us. Well, like me. No one was like the Avengers.

Our last trek down those creaking iron stairs. Our last moment in front of that bolted door. We took a collective deep breath, and then Steve slid the lock back, and stepped out into the night. The effect was instantaneous.

Maybe we had all been too lost in foolish conversation, or playful bantering to check the front street once again before we left the roof. Maybe the sound of us trooping down the stairs drew them. Maybe they were getting smarter, or Nergaul was bored and decided to play with his toys like a malicious child. Whatever happened, it sucked.

Before we could make it out behind him, a zombie slammed into Steve from the side, it's ragged jaws snapping like a piranha, The grisly skin was falling away from it's skull, leaving an absurd looking mask behind. Soft graying skin still stuck to the cartilage on the nose, the eyeballs mushy and running from the sockets. It sunk it's decaying teeth into his neck, blood spurted in a heated jet, splashing across Bruce's chest. He gasped out, looking down at his front and back up at his compatriot. His eyes began to glow, and he threw himself out the doorway, his skin already greening, body expanding. We poured out behind him, weapons held high. The Hulk roared like King Kong, picking up zombies and slamming then down into the street head first. Blood and brains streaked the concrete. He looked for all the world like someone who was trying to get a pen to work, throwing it out after a moment and getting another.

A strangled cry escaped Steve. I spun around to see Tony scrambling toward him. The zombie's surprise attack had taken him down in the street, but Steve managed to put a knee in it's gut and punch it in the jaw, which splintered on contact. He kicked it off, it's ruined jaws still trying to bite the air between them. The things ripped and dirty suit was a fake, one of the faux suits that is used in a funeral home. Open in the back…the clothing fell away as the thing bounced off a light pole, and rebounded.

Steve had put a hand to his jetting neck…his jugular was bleeding him out all over the sidewalk, and the team gathered around him. I looked from them to the naked zombie. It had regained it's footing and was moving jerkily toward me. It stopped for a moment, like it was scrutinizing me, and then suddenly it put on a very un-zombie like burst of speed and leapt at me. I had just enough time to lift my katana and utter a shriek, before the Hulk scooped it out of the air by it's ankles and slammed it sideways into the building across the street over and over. I quickly ran over to try to help the others…but it was too late for help. Too late for Captain America.

Steve was dying, and I could tell that he knew it. His bright blood was everywhere, contrasting with the nearly black maroon ichor that came out of the zombies. One of his hands was at his ruined throat, the other had come to rest on Tony's arm.

"Stark," he rasped. "You're going to have to shoot me."

Tony looked sick. His skin was very pale. "Let's not talk like that, Cap. We are going to fix this."

Steve clenched onto the other man's arm. "No sugar coating…I'm dying…I don't….don't want to come back like those… things. Promise….me."

Tears were gathering in Clint's eyes, he tried to blink them back. They were freely coursing down Natasha's cheeks, yet her face remained stoic. No emotion.

"Dammit, Spangles….," Tony began.

Steve tried to smile through his grimace, a harsh bark of laughter escaping his lips. "Don't… call… me that…jerk. Take care…of the…team," his voice was growing weaker. His eyes looked glassy, a few more ragged breaths, as his body hitched, and then he was still. He last breath came out in a whisper like a breeze. He was gone.

"FUCK!" Tony screamed. "FUCK! THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!" Steve's hand was still on his arm.

"Pull your gun, Stark," Clint said. His voice was deathly serious. It gave me chills. "Pull your goddamn gun!" he said, louder this time.

"Wha-," Tony began…. and Steve suddenly sat up. "Cap?"

"It's not him!" Natasha exclaimed falling back away from him. She grabbed Clint's arm and pulled him back. "Shoot him, Stark! That's what he wanted, but I will slice his fucking head off, if you don't fucking HURRY!"

Tony tried to wrench his arm away, but the newly reanimated Steve had clamped down hard. He jerkily turned his head toward his teammate, the re-awakened muscles already beginning to stiffen. His eyes were milky, vacant. Steve was strong, a large man and heavily muscled; he began to pull Tony easily toward him. Tony's eyes were locked with the corpses…he looked awed, confused, like he didn't want to believe that Captain America, who had been very much alive only minutes ago, was now a flesh eating zombie…and zeroing in on his face.

He fumbled with the gun tucked into his jeans, not tearing his eyes away from Steve's. Slowly Tony raised the barrel and put it against his temple. "Cap," he whispered. Their faces were inches from each other. "I'm sorry."

I winced as he pulled the trigger, and the tears began to flow down my face. "This nightmare has to end," I whispered to no one in particular.

The blast echoed down the street, and Steve fell back, his hand finally falling away from Tony's arm. He dropped the gun and buried his face in his hands. A mournful howl reminded us that Bruce was still the Hulk, and the green giant leapt over us, jumping from building to building, disappearing down the street, howling the entire way. Soon we could no longer see or hear him.

"We have to go," Natasha said. "There's more coming. All that noise is drawing them like wolves."

Sure enough they were coming out of the alley ways behind us. Their moans raising to the heavens, mournful, angry, hungry…dead. Tony stood up, tucking the gun back into the waist of his jeans, all the time not tearing his eyes away from his fallen comrade.

"We can't just leave him here," he said softly.

Natasha reached out and took his arm. He looked up at her, and his dark eyes looked haunted. I imagined they would probably look like that for quite sometime.

"Listen," she said calmly, "They won't bother him now. And we can come back for him later, I promise. But right now we have to go. We have already seen that some of them are faster then we first thought. If we don't get to your tower, then we can't try to stop this. More people will die, Tony. We can't let that happen, right? It's not what Steve would have wanted."

Tony nodded, took one last look at the body at his feet…and then he reached his hand out to me. Until now I had remained just a bit back away from them, saying nothing. It all just seemed to intimate, too personal for me to be involved. I gladly took his hand, relieved to feel the comfort of his touch, and we began to run down the middle of the street.

The majority of the undead now seemed to be behind us. A few would come rushing or staggering out of an alley as we went past. Tony shot the fast ones, the others we merely kept a good distance away from. They had formed a slow moving mass behind us, a rotting, stinking wall. It had to be what the gates of the kingdom of Hell would've looked like….if I had believed in it.

The way was blessedly easy to find. We just followed the trail of debris left by the Hulk. Occasionally a litter of zombie bodies, all with smashed useless heads, would lay at the base of an apartment building or a sky rise. The stuff once inside their heads smeared down the red brick or glass and concrete, pooled into congealed Jell-O like puddles on the sidewalk. Pretty nasty, yet comforting.

We were out of breath by the time we reached the downtown district. High-rises and sky scrapers loomed above us. This is where the real war zone seemed to be. There were half eaten carcasses strewn about, their skulls cracked open to get to the soft brains inside. Cars were on fire in the streets, smashed and blown out, charred pieces of bodies were everywhere. Many were still inside the vehicles. It sickened me to think that it was very possible that people stayed in their cars to burn up, rather than escaping the fire into the arms of the dead. I wasn't sure which death would be worse…thinking about it made me shudder.

Tony draped a strong arm around my shoulder. "Now's not the time to let the shock set in, Cheerleader. Hold it off for a little longer and then you can fall apart all over the fucking place, okay? We all can."

I nodded. "I'm okay."

He squeezed me. "You are about as okay as I am, babe. And I am not alright-not at all. We are almost there…almost home."

"I don't know where the fuck home is anymore," I murmured. My eyes still scanned the cars, the fires, the bodies. Maybe I was watching for movement…and praying that I wouldn't see any. I glanced over at the man holding me for a moment.

Tony was also scanning the scene, definitely watching for the dead walkers. I could feel it in his tensed up muscles. He was ready for anything. I took a lot of comfort in that.

Quietly he said, "You have a home with me as long as you want it."

I opened my mouth, unsure what to say, he held his hand up. "Now isn't the time. We will have lots of time to talk about that later, once we get through this. And we are going to get through this. Stay behind me."

He began to guide our group through the carnage. He stayed in the safest areas to keep us out of harms way as much as possible. _As if he is taking the Captain's place, _I thought. Tony took us down one street, and up another. There at the end was the tower…home. I felt a pain in my chest, my throat swelled a little. I'm still not sure if it was fear of the unknown or happiness at being so close to our goal. A little of both I think. After all, out on the streets, we knew what the score was….there were walking dead, and they wanted to eat us. Who knew what kind of nasty fucking surprises were inside that building, waiting on us. Floor after fucking floor of them.

No one said anything as we walked up the street toward Stark Tower. I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, nearing the Emerald City, with her rag tag group of friends. One minute skipping happily down the Yellow Brick Road, the next shaking in front of the giant gates of the city…awed by it's glory, yet terrified to go in. A few zombies milled around, fresher ones. Not the kind that had dragged themselves from the slab or the tomb, but ones newly turned. In business suits…Stark employees probably. They looked lost. A long time ago I went to visit my grandmother in the nursing home before she died. She was in a ward full of people with Alzheimer's…and I was reminded of it now. The way the old men and women shuffled around, no particular plan in their minds of where they were going or what they were doing. "_Their brains are out to lunch,"_ my mother had said. "_They don't even know where they are. It's so sad."_

A couple of them turned to the sound of our footsteps, and began to slowly make their way toward us. They would never get to us, we knew that. We picked our way through knocked over trash cans and past a torn apart newspaper stand. Papers and litter were strewn across the street. Further on a knocked over hot dog stand had proved to be too irresistible to the city's sewer rat population. They would slink to the stand, grab meat or bread, even pickles, and then scurry back into what ever hole they had crawled out of.

A stray dog wandered up snuffling the ground around the cart. He practically inhaled a bratwurst and then snapped at a nearby rat. The vermin jumped on his face, biting and clawing. Dominion over a hot dog cart. The dog flicked its head, and the rat flew up in the air, still attached to one floppy brown ear. The ear ripped spraying blood, bringing an angry yelp out of the dog like a curse, and the rat let go. The dog immediately snatched it out of the air and promptly bit it in half. The front half lay on the ground, and after a moment it began biting and clawing again. The dog didn't notice, he was pulling the guts from the back half, gulping them down. He cut his eyes up at us, growled, and then ran off with the half dead rat in his mouth.

Now close enough, we could see that someone sat on the steps of Stark Tower, his head down. He looked up at us as we ascended, and tried to smile. His eyes were red and raw, his hair a tousled brown mess.

"Bruce!" Clint cried. "Thank GOD, Man! You have no idea how scary it is to think that a Hulked out zombie might be waiting for you around every corner!"

"What he is trying to say," Natasha said, smacking Clint in the back of the head, "is that we were all very worried about you. It is good to see you."

"Yeah," Clint grinned, rubbing the back of his head. "That is exactly what I was saying."

Bruce's crooked smile grew a little wider. "I'm glad to see you all too." His eyes clouded over for a moment. "Steve…he's dead isn't he?"

Somberly we all nodded. "I didn't think I dreamed it," he said. "But I was hoping." He stood up. His clothes were different, suit pants and a white button up. He must have seen me looking, because he said. "I got these clothes off a corpse. Better than being half naked, I suppose."

"Depends on who you are," Tony said, half smile playing across his lips. There was some of the old Tony. The one before…

Bruce laughed. "That is true, that is true. So, are we ready for this?" He turned and motioned to the doors of Stark Tower.

It felt like we all took a deep collective breath. "Fuck it," Tony said. "Let's go. It's time to end this."

And with those words, we marched together into Tony Stark's beloved Tower.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: Animefreak….it's a **_**zombie **_**story with gratuitous sex. Yep, someone had to go. I did kill Captain America. AND I made Iron Man do it…. And I did do it just like that. (_evil dirty little leer) _SPOILER ALERT*** Oh, wait, no there's not. All I will say is this, keep reading. It may get better, it may get nastier...but eventually it will have an end and a point. **

**Love,**

**The Sign Painter.**

The lobby was empty. Our footfalls echoed across a floor so shiny, it could have been made of Swarovski. Even the walls, modernesque in their curves of metal and glass, shone in the light, still given off from the arc reactor at the core of the building. The only building left that still had power-that we had seen. We stopped just inside the doors. It was quiet….way too quiet.

Clint nudged Tony and pointed across the expansive room. They didn't call the man Hawkeye for nothing, he had immediately seen what we did not. Blood. Lots of it, smeared across the floor like a slaughtered bull had been dragged away by a fucking truck. There were large splashes of red across several of the information kiosks. As we neared them we saw a fountain around the corner of glass blocks.…flowing red. Several bodies were submerged in it, their blood mingling with the water. Their stomachs were ripped open, bloated intestines floating in the water like seaweed. Arms and legs missing vast chunks of meat swirled around in the ever moving water. Their heads were torn apart. These cadavers would not be rising ever again.

"What the fuck happened to them?" Clint breathed. "These don't look like any of the victims we have been seeing. They look like some animal was at them, look how ragged the marks on the heads are. Like the Hulk just picked them up and chomped half of their heads off. No offense."

"None taken," Bruce replied. "You're right. The large trail of blood is different too. This isn't what we have been seeing. It goes into there." He pointed to two large silver double doors that were streaked down low with blood from what looked like hands.

"That's a conference room," Tony said. "Just one big room."

"It looks like someone tried to hold on while they were being dragged in there," I said softly.

I took one step forward and the air in front of the door blurred, then sparkled like sunlight dancing across water. Slowly a form began to appear.

"Is that…" Tony began, and the form solidified. "Loki!" He raised his gun.

Loki held up a hand. He looked exhausted, not at all like his usual smug mischievous self. "Stark," he began. "You know that won't affect me. Stop, and listen."

"Why the fuck should we listen to you?" I don't think he even realized that he had instinctively stepped in front of me, one arm back, the hand pressed against my side. Protective…or possessive. Sometimes those go hand in hand.

Loki sighed wearily. "Look at me, Stark. Do I look like I pose a threat to you right now. Or to her?" He flicked his hand in our direction. Still dismissive….still Loki. Just a tired version of his former glory.

"You always pose a threat to something," Clint growled. "Fucking shit up gets you off."

Loki feigned a smile. "That is does, Archer, but not today. Listen to me. Do NOT go beyond this door. I can not save you if you do."

Natasha snorted. "You have never saved a human being in your entire life."

"That is not entirely true," Loki said. "I have been saving her this entire time." He motioned toward me. "But if you enter this room, I will not be able to do that. Nergaul…" his voice drifted off, and he cut his eyes to the ground.

I gently pushed Tony's hand away and moved to his side. "You actually look remorseful," I said. "That has to be bullshit. You have no emotions other than joy you get from fucking up someone else's day. Now get on with it, what lies are you trying to sell us."

"Things did not go…as planned," Loki said, turning his gaze up to meet mine. His eyes were icy. "When the serpent god, Nergaul, and I joined together, it was to take over this miserable world and rule it together. He could control the armies of the dead, that was to be his only involvement…but he is more of a trickster than even I, and he could not stand to not mingle with you…humans." He spat the word with his usual venom. "I only wanted to take this world over, make the last of the inhabitants be slaves to my superior race," (that earned me a leer which I did not like, but was more to Loki's usual demeanor.), "but Nergaul did not keep his word. Things have gotten out of hand. By the time he is through, there will be no more slaves, there will be no world to rule. He only wants to destroy this planet…and eat it, till it is gone."

"Eat it?" Bruce asked.

"Eat you, human," Loki said, again sounding weary. His form was beginning to shimmer again.

"Superhuman, thank you very much," Tony said. "What's with the sparkling there, Edward?"

Loki glared at him. "It is taking all the power I have to stay in your realm. Nergaul is trying to keep me out, because he wants this planet for himself. He will destroy everything in his path, and eat until all your race is gone. That does not fit my needs at all. That was _NOT _our original agreement." Loki sniffed like an angry child, and then motioned toward the door again. "My grip on your world is slipping, so listen well. Nergaul has many forms, but his true form is a serpent that can split itself into many parts. One of them is in this room right now, and he _will_ kill you if you go in there. You must NOT do that."

"Okay, wait," Tony said, holding up a hand in a shushing gesture. Loki looked put off. "So you are just trying to save us, so we can be your slaves when all this is done? We are going in that fucking room, and you know that we will. There is a possibility that whoever left those," he pointed toward the handprints, "may still be alive. Judging from all the blood, they probably are not, but they _might _be. And we have to find out."

"Then you are all FOOLS!" Loki roared. His formed flickered violently. "Dead fools!"

Tony took a step toward him. "Out of the way, godboy. By the way, where the hell _is_ your brother?"

Loki's eyes narrowed. "He came to stop us when this all began. Nergaul has him…put away."

"Is he alive?" I asked, remembering how he had saved me.

"Yes, though I cannot say the same for your Director Fury." Loki's voice had begun to sound like he was speaking through water. "I cannot free Thor. Only _HE_ can. Listen to me, you cannot stop him if you are dead."

"So you got us all into this mess, and now you want _us,_ the puny humans, to stop him? And how the hell are we supposed to do that?" Natasha asked.

Loki opened his mouth to answer, but began to fade. His voice wasn't audible anymore. Frantically he looked from the door to us, speaking furiously.

"He's begging us not to go in there," I said softly, as Loki disappeared completely from sight.

"Come on," Tony growled. "He's a trickster, Journey. We've had this conversation before. And you may let him fool you repeatedly, but I refuse." He started for the door again.

I grabbed his arm and spun him around. Tony's jaw was set, he looked genuinely pissed, and his gaze was pointed at me. "You can make me live those moments over again for the rest of my fucking miserable life, which may not be that long if we go in that fucking room," I said. I was furious with his accusing gaze. He couldn't let it go. Hell, I couldn't let it go. I was mad at myself for enjoying Loki the last time he had come to me, and for the electric way he'd made me feel in the shower. But I was damn sure not going to let Tony bully me and make me feel worse. "Let's not make this about your goddamn ego, alright?"

"What the fuck does that mean?" He said, leaning his face into mine. His dark eyes flashed.

I held my ground. "It MEANS that if you just want to go in that room because Loki said not too, then you could be getting us all killed just to prove a stupid point. We go in that room because we want to help the people that might be alive in there, not to ease your jealousy."

"Jealousy?" Tony laughed wryly. "Little girl, I don't _get_ jealous. I _breed _it in others. Why the fuck would I be jealous? Because you enjoyed fucking that prick? You probably even liked it the first time!"

"FUCK YOU!" I yelled. Tears were threatening to sting my eyes, but my anger held them at bay. "You know good and goddamn well I did not like it that first time."

His grin was savage. "It doesn't matter anyway. After all, you were calling my name."

I slapped him hard across the face. A collective gasp went up from Clint and Natasha. Tony's face was a mask of surprise, hurt, and anger. The bright red hand print began to bloom on his cheek. Bruce put a hand lightly on my shoulder.

"Guys?" He said, his soft voice breaking through the death stares Tony and I were giving each other. "I'm no expert, but it seems this is probably not the time and place for this kind of….discussion."

"Discussion is closed," Tony growled through clenched teeth. "Steve is fucking dead because of Loki and that Nergaul god_ thing_. I intend to free anyone still alive in this room and get fucking retribution one way or another!" And with that he spun around and kicked open the conference room doors.

The smell hit me before my mind could actually wrap around what I was seeing. It was atrocious- the stench of rotting meat mingling with a musky odor like you might smell in a zoo…add the smell of animal shit to that, and you have yourself a dangerous combo. My eyes began to water. Instinctively my hand clamped over my nose and mouth. Someone behind me gagged, I think it may have been Bruce. A low moan of "_Shiiit_," came from Natasha.

"Well," Tony said quietly, "that's totally fucked up."

The serpent thing was coiled up in a corner on top of two huge conference tables that had been pushed together. It looked a lot more like a big fucking nasty worm then a snake of any kind. It was covered in a slick looking grayish skin, not scales, but something like eel skin that rippled and undulated as it breathed. It was very large, appearing to be at least four feet in diameter, and probably 20 ft long. I wondered just how big Nergaul actually was if just a _piece_ of him was as long as a fucking bus.

The end of it that I presumed to be the head, had no ears or eyes that I could see, but there was a definitive mouth. The thing would stretch that open, as if gasping for breath, revealing three rows of sharp teeth that reminded me of something off of Shark Week.

"It's swallowing," Clint whispered. "I had a Burmese python when I was younger…that's the way she swallowed, looked like she was gulping air. See the lump moving?"

We did. There was a lump about four feet behind the massive jaws, and it was slowly moving backward every time Nergaul swallowed. That bulge was somebody. Or had been.

Possibly even more disgusting then the worm snake thing, was the room around it. The blood trail split off and led to different parts of the room. It was so thick on the floor we were standing on, because the creature had drug a lot more than one person in here…it had dozens of them. They were strung up around the room in various places, encased in what looked like the nasty shiny shit that slugs leave behind as they move along. The stuff looked gelatinous, but solid, and was strung EVERYWHERE. From the ceiling, from the chairs, the monitors on the walls, the bookcase in the corner. There was not much left in the room that was not coated in that shit, except Nergaul's nasty corner. In _it's _corner, under the table were piles of mucous in various colors of maroon and black. Bones stuck out of it. _That's it's fucking toilet, _I realized. I could have gone my whole life without that realization.

"Stop," a weak voice said from behind us. We turned around to see Loki again. He was behind us, leaning against the edge of the blood soaked fountain. He looked even paler than usual, if that was possible. "Listen to me."

I walked over to him. His eyes scanned me warily. I had a feeling he was very vulnerable. "I'm listening," I said.

"Stark, please close those doors." Loki's voice came out in a begging kind of whine. Whether it was the sound of the strange god's voice, or his non characteristic demeanor…or maybe just the horror in the room beyond…something spoke to Tony. He began to slowly pull the large metal doors closed. The worm thing never moved, just continued to sit and ruminate. None of the nasty jelly sacks full of people moved either. The people inside were dead. Just snacks for later.

The doors shut. Loki took a deep, relieved breath. "If I had known he was that thing…" his voice trailed off.

"Now," Natasha said. Her voice sounded a touch shaky, but she quickly rectified it. "Tell us how to kill him."

Loki nodded. "You can not kill him piece by piece. You have to get all those vile things together, and kill him as one whole. If you had managed to survive that thing in there," he gestured to the room, "which I doubt, but if you had, and you had killed it, the other parts would have known. They would have scattered as far apart as possible. As long as one piece of him is still alive, then Nergaul lives. But get them all together…"

"How?" Tony asked.

"That's not an easy task, but I am a trickster after all," Loki gave him a tired but sly smile. "Mischief and mayhem are my lot in this life. Get to the top of the Tower, but do not call Nergaul, call me. If you call me, I can come through easier. I will know what to do by then. But you all must be careful. There are pieces of that thing all over this building, along with the undead."

"It still feels very strange to hear you telling us to be careful." I said. I was still very close to him. His scent permeated my nostrils…he smelled of mint and ice. Not unpleasant at all. Refreshing like ice cream on a hot day….

Loki winked at me, and the refreshment fell away. He leaned forward so only I could hear. "I have still got you. You are still mine." he whispered.

I smiled at him. "No, you don't. I belong to no one. No one."

His form was beginning to waver again. "I must go," Loki said aloud. "Stay away from the stair wells." His voice faded out like the end of song on an album. And he was gone.

"What did he say to you?" Tony demanded. "He whispered something to you, what was it?"

I turned to face him. He did not look so much pissed, as worried. "He told me I still belonged to him," I answered.

"And what did you say?"

"I told him I belong to no one."

"Is that so?" Tony's eyebrows knitted together. His face was oddly hard to read.

"Apparently it is," I didn't like the fight that had erupted between us, it had hurt. But we needed to focus on the task at hand. There was time for all that crap later. I took a deep breath. "So, if we are supposed to stay out of the stair ways, then where the hell is the elevator in this place?"


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note: If you are a die hard Resident Evil fan, you may notice I took a few liberties. It's my homage to the games which I love, but more of a nod to the movies, with Milla (zomg she is so damn hot in those movies. She makes zombie slashing the sexiest thing ever). Hope you enjoy! And review, dammit! Or just say hi, fuck, I don't care. Luv (insert eyelash fluttering here).**

"Quick question. Why did we just not take this from the penthouse to the kitchens that night?" I asked as we got into an elevator large enough to be small room.

"It would have brought us directly out in the kitchen, and I was already pretty certain that my cook was a dead woman walking," Tony answered. He had been eyeing me up for the last few minutes. "I didn't want us to be cornered."

I smiled at him. A small smile Uncertain. "I'm glad you thought of that."

Tony held his hand up in front of a black pad on the control panel of the elevator. It scanned his palm, and then the elevator took off with a lurch. "It's usually a lot smoother than that," he said as I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed myself against the back wall. I felt like I had left my stomach in the lobby.

A strong arm slid tentatively around me. Slow, as unsure as my smile. I laid my head against Tony's chest, my eyes still shut, and sighed heavily. A moment of peace in all this chaos. It felt good. Right. I never wanted to open my fucking eyes again.

"I shouldn't have said that stupid shit," he murmured into my hair. "I don't know what the fuck happened back there."

"Me either," I said. "Let's chalk it up to stress and weird worm thing pheromones in the air."

I felt him take a deep breath, it sounded as if he were about to say something in response, but then the elevator lurched again, a sickening feeling. "What the fuck is going on with this goddamn thing?" he exclaimed. "This elevator usually rides smoother than a Padang whore."

I would've laughed if my stomach hadn't been up inside my throat. The elevator jerked on the tracks again.

"It feels like something is messing with the cables," Natasha said. "There are other elevators in this building, aren't there?"

"Of course," Tony replied. "There's a whole bank of them on the furthest wall of the building. This is just the only one that goes all the way to the penthouse suite…it's the top two floors. The other elevators stop four floors down in the offices. There is a freight elevator that goes all the way to the kitchens. That would probably be our best bet."

The elevator gave another lurch, and there was a horrid snapping sound. It ground to a halt, the emergency brakes squealing like a pack of hogs in a slaughter house. The sound of a cable falling could be heard up through the shaft. The panel showed us to be between floors 15 and 16, it kept flashing back and forth. The twanging sound of the cable got louder, and it landed on the roof of the elevator with a crash that shook us on our feet. The lights in the elevator flickered for a moment, but stayed on.

"Fuck," I hissed. "I _hate hate hate _elevators, and this shit right here is why."

"Help me pry these doors open, Bruce," Clint said. Together they managed to open the doors enough for us to see that the 16th floor seemed to be all offices…and then water poured over the edge and onto our heads.

We spluttered and wiped our eyes, and then Clint pulled himself up, slipping once, but managing to get over the side and onto the floor.

"The whole floor is flooded it looks like," he said reaching down and grabbing Natasha's hand. "Good news is, so far, no zombies." He pulled her up…she even looked graceful when being rescued from an elevator shaft. Bruce followed suit. "Next?" he said, smiling softly.

I looked at Tony. "Maturity before beauty," I said.

"Does that mean you're going first?"

I grinned at him. "Funny fucker. Nope, just means your old. But you are right, I am the more mature one in this relationship…now get your fine ass up there, and pull me up."

"Oh, are we in a relationship now?" He returned the smile (_Damn, he is fabulous when he does that.) _and grabbed the edge of the elevator. I watched with appreciation as his arms flexed, strong and lean…but with more appreciation at the nice rear view I was getting. Suddenly something landed with smashing force on top of the elevator. Tony pulled himself over just as the elevator lurched another foot downward.

"Holy shit!" Clint yelled, falling backward. He and Natasha pulled their swords.

"It's stuck in the shaft!" Tony cried, reaching a hand into the elevator. "It can't turn around, grab my fucking hand, NOW!"

I was reaching for him, as the elevator dropped another 6 inches. "HURRY!" he screamed at me. Bruce hit his knees beside Tony, and held an arm out to me. I grasped both their hands, and together they heaved me up so hard, I practically flew through the small opening. My feet had just cleared as the elevator settled again-my legs would have been crushed had they not pulled me out as quick as they did. Together they dragged me away from something that was thrashing violently on top of the elevator. Tony slammed backward against the wall, pulling me with him. We were soaked, and from behind me I heard a roar that reverberated the fucking walls. A picture above our heads swayed dangerously. Slowly I turned around, already pretty certain what I was going to see.

It was another of the serpent gods segments. This one had actual legs, nasty looking things, like a spider and a crab decided to father a mutant child with a leach. It had the same gray rubbery body, and it was twisting and curling in the elevator shaft, trying like hell to get turned around.

"Here's a conundrum," Natasha said quickly. "If that thing falls, it may die. And Loki says it all has to be alive to die…but if it gets turned around and gets off of there…then it will probably eat us. Unless we kill it first…and then we are back to the alive to die thing again."

"We need to run," I whispered.

"What?" Clint asked.

"FUCKING RUN!" I screamed, just as the thing managed to turn it's head toward us. Still no eyes or ears, but the mouth was open and squealing in a high pitched way that made my ears want to bleed.

We fled down the slippery hallway, as it threw itself out of the shaft with enough force to slam into the wall where we had just been sitting. This once was bigger than the last one, and while it may have had several nasty legs, but they seemed nearly useless in water. I glanced back once to see it scrambling and clawing for purchase on the wet tile floor, getting up and falling down repeatedly in a way that would have been comical had it not been so horrific. We ran into the maze of office corridors, trying to put as much space between us and it as we possibly could…and that's when we found the source of the water.

We turned a corner into a new hallway. These did not seem to be offices, but looked more like labs, each closed off from the next. Their walls had large thickly glassed windows. One of the rooms was flooded. The water was murky and filled the entire room all the way to the ceiling. It was leaking out of cracks in the door…jet streams of water like a malfunctioning sprinkler. Tony put a hand up to the glass.

"These are a few of the experimental labs…you know I always try to employ some of the best minds…they come here and work on their ideas. This room was for hydro electric power generation…making it very small scale, and environmentally friendly. Varying levels of sustainable power…They were tweaking a few things, trying to bring old school ideas into the future. The tank must have ruptured…and the door sealed. I have no idea why it would have done that though. Sealed like that." He rubbed at his neck.

I saw a shadow moving in the water. "Did you have fish in there?"

"Fish? Why would we have fish?" Tony cocked an eyebrow at me like I had just said the stupidest thing ever.

"Fuck, I don't know, I'm no scientist." I pointed at the shape that was moving closer through the water. "But that looks like it's swimming."

A moment later, he slammed into the window hard enough to make it shiver. His teeth gnashed at the glass. What had once been a young man in a lab coat, was now a blue tinted disaster, bloated and foul. His eyes were milky and looked as if they were swimming around in the sockets. He clawed at the glass, at us.

"Jesus," Tony said softly. He had recoiled when the drowned lab tech had slammed into the window. He flattened his palm back out on the glass. "I met this kid the day that he started. I was sure he was going to revolutionize the efficiency of-" he broke off. "Does anyone else feel that vibration?"

The corpse was trying to bite the spot where Tony's hand was on the glass. So much for a genius mind. Suddenly he stopped, and let himself float back into the recesses if his watery cave, disappearing from view. The glass vibrated. The sound was now audible. Thump…tha-thump….thump….tha thump.

"It's got to be the worm," I whispered. "It had legs."

"I don't think so," Clint said, his voice hushed. "The sound is all wrong. But I do think we need to move before it gets here. It sounds more like the Hulk with a limp."

Bruce nodded. "Whatever it is, it's big."

We turned and ran down the corridor, Tony leading the way. The sound, whatever it was, grew fainter. It wasn't chasing us. Maybe it couldn't with that limp. We slowed down, nearing a door. A placard on the wall said **SUPPLY ROOM.**

"The freight elevator is on the back wall of this room," Tony said in a hushed voice. "I'm hoping like hell for smooth sailing-"

The rest of his sentence was lost by a crash from behind us. It sounded like an entire wall had just come down. A few seconds passed-another crash. Tony threw open the door, and we piled into a very open room. The walls were lined with shelves of boxes of printer paper, staples, ink pens. A few office machines in a back corner. Mainly it looked like a colossal waste of space, but a good place for a fight. Natasha was scanning the room, probably thinking the same thing, as another wall came down outside in the hallway. Fight or flight kicked in, and everyone drew their weapons and stood their ground.

The thumping footfalls again. I was as tense as a fucking tightrope…(_nervous as a cat in a room full of rockin' chairs, my mother would've said…and she would have been fucking-A correct). _I felt sick, but I was tired of running. We had been running from walking dead for days. If this wasn't one of Nergual's worms, then we could kill it, and maybe it was time for something to die…again.

The wall in front of us exploded inward, pieces of wood and gypsum rained down on us like hail. The snowy sheetrock dust cleared, and there it was. A giant. A freaking giant, I swear to God. It was a reanimated corpse like the others, but it was vastly different. He was the biggest man I think I have ever seen. His wide face was cut up badly, milky eyes staring at us from lidless eyes. His nose was flayed open, his cheeks hung in ragged shreds. His shirtless upper torso was ripped, huge bulging muscles protruded out from his arms, chest, and abs in a way that almost obscene. Long cuts covered him, and he looked for all the world like he'd had a couple of fights with a bale of razor wire. Looking at his legs, it was apparent why he'd just started coming through the walls instead of trying to chase us down in the corridors. One leg was a ruin, the skin and muscle flayed open to the bone in many places. The tendons were most likely cut, and stiff, and the leg just wouldn't move like it once had. He wore torn up jeans and black combat boots. The steel toe kind. The thing looked like he was made to kick ass, and do nothing else….except maybe eat them when he was done.

"What….the….fuck?" Clint said. "I didn't know Hulk had an even uglier brother."

Bruce didn't answer, he was standing in a very defensive position with his mouth hanging open. The mangled face of the giant opened to reveal a gaping maw, and he roared…no other word for it…so savagely, that Bruce's mouth clamped shut, his jaw set, and his eyes began to shine. "No…fighting…this. You...might...want...to...move," he grunted, through clenched teeth, never taking his eyes from the thing that had come through the wall.

"Fall back!" Natasha yelled.

We complied as the Bruce Banner's muscles began to expand, the new shirt (he'd stolen from a corpse…good thing there were a lot of those laying around) tearing away from his quickly greening skin in strands. His legs swelled inside of his pants, the seams popping, as the Hulk emerged, enraged. The giant pushed his face forward, the tendons in his neck standing out like braided cord as he roared again...a challenge. They began to walk around in a circle, regarding each other coldly.

"This is either going to absolutely rock," Tony murmured, "or really suck."

I had a feeling he was right….on both counts.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Notes: Eliana 123: THANK YOU! I love me some Captain America just like everybody else, hell, it was nothing personal. And yep, I'm pretty sure he was the first to be turned. Somebody had to go…it just turned out he was the first one out the door ;) **

**LOL, Thor will make his way back. He is just 'put away' for the moment. **

**Thank you for the reviews, doll, they always make my day! Rolling black outs blow, we had a few here as well, a couple of days ago. I'm not sure if it was a rolling blackout or what happened, it's the South, maybe a damn squirrel chewed on a line LOL. But it did keep happening, during peak hours.**

**Now, on to the story! Hope y'all enjoy!**

The beasts circled each other, each assessing the other: one snarling and snapping at the air, the other glowering-jaw set. Suddenly the zombie stopped, roared and lunged. I could see the muscles of Hulk's calves bunch as he braced himself for the impact. Though he still towered over the huge bulk of his enemy, he seemed to be completely aware of the danger the thing posed. His first blow blocked the gnashing teeth, knocking a few of them out. The corpse staggered back, but only for a second. He shook his head as if shaking off the blow, and then he lunged again, aiming lower. The Hulk caught him, and they crashed together, punches flying, arms grappling for purchase.

We crouched behind a large copier, (as if that would protect us any at all from flying zombie parts and various other things). I was faintly aware that I was clutching Tony's hand so hard his circulation was probably being cut off.

"I hate this," he hissed. "As epic as this battle is, I feel like we should be helping him somehow."

Natasha shook her head. "I know, but we would just get in the way. I'm afraid one of us would end up with a huge corpse laying on top of us. This is Hulk's battle, has been since that thing showed its ugly mug."

As if to emphasis the point, the zombie went flying through the air, careening into the metal shelving. The shelf crumpled under his weight, a shower of BICs pouring across the floor. He rebounded rather quickly, and barreled back across the room, head butting the Hulk in the gut. Hulk grunted as the air was knocked out of him, and then brought both fists crashing down on the zombie's back. It buckled under the blow hitting the floor, growling in anger. Hulk brought a foot up under the thing's chin, and sent it careening backward through the air in a poorly executed back flip.

"That was _sweet!_" Tony blurted out. "Despite paper cost."

I slugged him in the shoulder. He never took his eyes off the fight, only rubbed at the tender spot, grinned, and whispered, "You know I like it rough."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Really, Stark, Jesu-"

"He's been bitten!" Clint cried out. "FUCK! That thing is biting him!"

Sure enough the huge zombie had managed to latch onto Hulk's arm with the few teeth that hadn't been pounded out of his rancid face. Hulk roared out in pain and anger, blood pouring from his arm onto the floor. He grabbed the thing by the neck, and threw him across the room once again. The walking atrocity hit the floor hard enough to leave a dent, and slid over near where we were.

"That fucker has to die!" Tony yelled.

The remaining Avengers were on him in an instant. Natasha shoved her blade down into his stomach, and with a wet squelch, he was pinned to the floor. Clint did the same, his blade driving through the corpses shoulder. The giant snapped and gnashed his teeth, his mouth oozing the Hulk's blood. Tony aimed his gun, smiled coldly (a look I will never be able to shake off), and put a bullet in his brain. The zombie shivered for a moment, his legs drumming the ground, and then was still.

"I fucking should have done that ages ago," Tony growled.

I approached the Hulk cautiously, but saw he was already slowly shrinking, changing back into Bruce. I grabbed the remains of his shredded shirt from the floor. His huge nostrils flared, huffing at me as I took his arm in my hands and held it until he'd completely become the doctor again. Bruce gritted his teeth as I began to wrap the poisoned limb with the strips of cloth. Black veins were already crawling around under his skin.

"That really hurts," he gasped. Bruce stared at the lines on his arms, and then turned his red rimmed eyes up to me. "You're the zombie expert," he said, and tried to smile, but it was terribly faint. "I'm pretty much screwed here, aren't I?"

I shook my head vigorously. "No," was all I could manage as I finished up, and tied off the homemade bandage.

Bruce took my hand in his, and brought it took his lips. It was covered in his blood, but he kissed the back of it anyway. Like we were in some medieval legend, and I was the fare maiden who had just pulled the thorn from the giant's finger. It made me smile, but I felt so fucking sad, that I knew the smile probably looked forced. This wasn't a story, it was real.

"You are a terrible liar," he said softly.

"I know," I whispered. Tears were threatening to come. The Avengers had already lost Nick Fury, Steve Rogers, Thor was missing and now Bruce had been bitten. I wanted to scream.

Tony came up behind me and put out his hand to Bruce. "Let's get the hell out of here, what do ya say?"

Bruce shook his head. "I'm not going."

Tony kept his hand out. "The hell you aren't. Now get your ass up, Banner."

"Either you shoot me, or give me the gun, and I will do it myself," Bruce said matter of factly.

The tears broke free of their dam. I had tried like hell, but truth be told, I'm a hard ass and a cry baby all rolled into one. Tattoos and piercing? That makes me giggle like a school girl. Sappy movies and Hallmark card commercials…forgetaboutit, I'm a ball of bawl.

I grabbed Bruce's good arm and started dragging him to his feet. "No way are we leaving you here, and nobody is shooting you or giving you a gun, do you hear me?" I yelled at him. "Nobody else is going to die, dammit!" I realized how crazy manic I probably seemed. Crying my eyes out, screaming at Bruce, who could Hulk smash me any minute just for being a nutty bitch.

He let me pull him up and then looked at me sympathetically, like I was the one who had been bitten by a raging diseased cannibal.

"I can't go with you guys," he said in his hushed voice. "I'm not safe. If the pain gets too rough, or I start to go out of my head from this…for lack of a better word, sickness, then I will probably Hulk out. And that is not something you want. Tony and Clint both said it before, you do not want to have to deal with a green giant zombie." He shuddered just the slightest bit.

Tony reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Listen, man, if it comes to that then I will take care of you. But until that time we all go together. You are still you, and I am damn well not putting a bullet in Dr, Bruce Banner until he is officially a walking dead giant like that guy." He motioned to the thing on the floor. "And that isn't going to happen. You're a scientist. We are going upstairs, and you can have the run of my lab to find a cure for this shit."

I pulled at his hand again. Commanding and crazy hadn't worked, so I tried for pitiful and begging. "Please, Bruce. Don't you see, we can't leave you behind?"

Clint and Natasha nodded their agreement. "You're our team member, Doc," Clint said. "Now let's get going before something else nasty shows up. This floor has really lost it's charm. I'm starting to feel a bit unwelcome."

Bruce smiled, (this one was genuine) and let me pull him into the freight elevator. I huddled between him and Tony as the door rattled shut, silently begging the Universe that this elevator would actually take us all the way up. Even if it did just go to the damn kitchens.

"Here goes everything," Tony murmured, pushing the button.

The elevator hummed to life, creaking and groaning like something out of a cheesy horror move. _Of course, _I thought sourly, _what else was I expecting?_ It shuddered and began to move along…we were so close now. I could practically smell the coffee and feel the linens on Tony's obscenely cushy bed, regardless of the fact that we weren't going up there for that, it sure would be nice just to know they were there.

Natasha pulled her katana as the elevator began to slow. Light after light went off on the panel, until finally…

"This is it," Tony breathed. "Everyone get ready. Bruce you okay?"

"Holding up," he said. I realized then that I still held his hand. I gave him a reassuring squeeze which he returned, and then I let go and pulled my sword.

The elevator dinged and the doors began to slide open. Swords glittered in the flickering light as we stepped out into the empty stock room. Suddenly I realized how ravenous I was, but pushed the thought aside. Maybe I could just grab a box of Ho Ho's or something….

The sound of shuffling feet greeted us, much like it had the last time we had come to the kitchens. They were on the other side of the stock room door. I shuddered, remembering the sound of the zombies in the stairwell. We would have to take that stairwell to the penthouse, since the elevator was busted to shit by a big fucking worm…speaking of worms, I wondered where the rest of them were. The rest of Him.

"Stay behind me," Tony said softly in my ear.

"Like hell," I murmured back. "You only have so many bullets, and by my count there aren't many left. The man with the gun should stand behind the people with the katanas, and cover us."

Bruce laughed, it was a gruff sound, but an honest laugh. "She's right, you know."

Tony looked put off, his mouth pursed to the side in a grim line. He didn't argue, however. Instead he looked at Bruce, "Alright, Doc, I'll hang out back here with you. And you kids can have all the fun this time around," he motioned to myself, Clint, and Natasha.

Natasha favored him with a raise of her eyebrow and a haughty look on her full lips. "I'm not sure how fun it's going to be whether you're in the rear or not, Stark."

"Oh, you would have a hell of a lot of fun with me in your rear, Red."

"Pig."

"Don't knock it till you've tried it!"

"You are a legend in your own porn movie of a mind, aren't you?"

Tony leered at her and winked at me. "She must be obsessed with my mind, she sure does talk about it a lot. And here I just wanted her to want me for my body. I have been going about this shit all wrong."

Even Clint was laughing. Natasha gave Tony a half smile, shook her sword at him, and then kicked open the door. (She seemed to love doing that.) The commotion began immediately. The kitchen was full of zombies that began to moan and howl as soon as the door flew open. We could see the door to the stairwell on the other side of the room.

Natasha pointed to it, and then took out two of the reanimated with one swing of her sword. Two heads fell onto the floor…she pierced them both in the middle of their foreheads, and then flung them across the room. Their bodies fell to the ground. A raggedy looking corpse, that had to have come from the streets outside shambled toward Clint. It's rotten face had been eaten away by the maggots that still crawled from it's decayed eye sockets. The smell was revolting…the dirt on it's clothes made it obvious that it was one of the risen. Clawing its way from the tomb looked to have taken a toll on its hands, the fingers were worn away to the bone. Clint eyed it for a moment with disgust and then neatly sliced the top of its head off. The zombie made a gurgling sound as it went down, the goo that had once been brains splashing across the metal table beside it.

"Dinner is served," Bruce said in a ridiculous British accent, and then giggled like a hyena. Tony looked at him, somewhat concerned, but Bruce waved him away. "I'm a little giddy but okay, and look out, would you?"

Tony turned around just as I punched my katana through the zombie's gut. She had been coming for him, half her dress torn away and her ruined breasts swayed rather unceremoniously.

"She had you pegged for a ladies man," I said, grabbing the hilt with both hands and pulling up hard. The razor sharp sword cut neatly through her like she was warm butter, slicing her in half from abdomen to the crown of her head. The result was disgusting, she fell apart as she fell down, kind of like an accordion, her insides splattering the floor in ropey pools.

Natasha had time to cock an eyebrow at me, and nod in approval, just as a fresher zombie sped from behind a nearby island and ran at her full tilt. "Some of them are fast!" she screamed out, bringing her blade down on it's head, which plopped apart like an over ripe melon.

"Bring it!" Clint screamed, taking out two more. The whirling of bodies, knives in the air, us, them, it all swirled together in a blur of gore and madness. I don't know how long it took to fight our way across that kitchen. At one point Tony couldn't stand it anymore, and grabbed my sword away, pushing me gently to the back to help hold up Bruce. I took his arm and put it around my shoulder, watching all the glory that was Tony Stark, as he ripped the blade through one zombie after another. His muscles clenched and bunched as he hacked through the crowd. By the time we made it to the door to the hallway, there was blood splashed on our fronts, dripping from our blades.

Tony gave me back the katana, I wiped it on my shirt, and then sheathed it. He was puffing from exertion, but winked at me again, and together we took Bruce's arms over our shoulders and helped him down the hallway. The stairwell was blessedly empty, and we took the steps two by two, until finally we had reached the door to the penthouse.

"Daddy's home, baby," Tony said, punching the keys and letting us in. I took a deep breath of the apartment's air. It felt cool on our skin, and smelled clean, fresh.

"What do we do first?" I asked. "Loki said for us to call him, Nergaul wants us to call him, but if he is as all knowing as he claims, then he already knows we are here anyway. Bruce needs medical attention, but also needs to work on an antidote…and I want a fucking drink."

Tony grinned. "There's my girl," he said softly. "Clint and I will take Bruce to the lab. Get your drink, and when I get back up here, we are calling godboy."

Clint took my place under Bruce's arm. I smiled at him, and he smiled softly back, no trace of the Hulk at all now. He looked tired and worn, but not done, not beaten. Not by a long shot. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to the corner of his mouth. Bruce closed his eyes and sighed. "Thank you," he said quietly. Then he looked from Tony to Clint. "Let's go."

I glanced over at Natasha as they helped him down the stairs to the lab. "Drink with me?" I asked. She nodded and we saddled up to the bar. It was easy to get pretty cozy there, pretty quick. She poured herself a Vodka straight. I went for the rum. She sighed heavily and knocked back her glass, grimacing just the least bit,…and then poured another.

"This is going to fucking suck, isn't it?" I asked.

"When you consider that we have to trust a god that tried to kill us once before…then yes, I think it most certainly will," she replied. "I just hope the devious bastard has a real plan."

"Tsk Tsk," a voice behind us made us jump nearly off the stools we sat on. "You doubt me?"

I spun around, spilling my drink. "Fuck, look what you did…now my shirt is all messy."

Loki shook his head, eyeing my blood smeared shirt. "You, my dear, have been with Stark for far too long," he mused. "Now, where is that Iron beast of yours?"

"I thought we had to call you or something?" Tony shouted as he jogged back up the stairs.

Loki's form flickered a little like it had back in the lobby. "I was waiting." he answered.

"And he was not the only one who was," another voice caused us all to jump, even Loki. Nergaul was sitting back in the chair once again, a drink in his hand just as before. "Nice to see you, Loki, dear."

Loki looked horrified, and backed away from the other being until he was actually next to me at the bar. His form nearly winked out, and then solidified again. Nergaul waved his hand in the god of mischief's direction. "There, now there will be no more of that annoying blinking you keep doing. In fact, you will not be going anywhere any time soon," he winked at Loki. "Do you know what your problem is, son of Laufey?"

Loki stood a little taller, his eyes flashing at the moniker the other deity had called him by. "And what is that?" he spat.

"You have trouble committing." Nergaul answered, favoring his glass like it was fascinating. "You wanted this until it started, and then you did not want it anymore. You wanted this, Loki, do you not remember _that?_"

"I had no idea what you really were. You lied to me," Loki replied.

"I lied to you?" Nergaul laughed viciously. "To you, the _god _of lies? I did no such thing, I merely gave you what it was you wanted-death, destruction, and pain. I am death reincarnate, fool! I am an eater of men and gods, of entire _worlds_! You are merely food to me. When this world is dead, perhaps I will visit yours." He smiled wickedly, showing his sharp teeth, and then chomped at the air and laughed.

"Where is Thor?" Natasha interrupted them.

Nergaul's mouth gaped, he snapped his fingers, as if he had forgotten something. "Ah, yes, Odinson! He is put away for safe keeping. A snack for later perhaps."

"I grow weary of your games," Loki growled. His knuckles were white where he firmly gripped the corner of the bar.

"Games?" Nergaul said in a way that said, "what… me?". "But you love games, Laufeyson. All the trickster god's loved games, once upon a time. There are not many of them left now."

"Aww, a bedtime story," Tony said. He came up to the bar, and poured himself a glass of Scotch, knocked it back and moaned low. The sound sent tingles up my spine. I was aware of the way I was looking at him, and the way Loki was looking at both of us in disgust.

"Mortals," he said curtly.

"What?" Tony mused. "I have missed my bar more than I have missed JARVIS. Can I have him back yet?" he asked the serpent god.

"Perhaps," Nergaul smiled. "I am growing fond of him, myself."

Tony poured another drink and it was gone in one gulp. He moaned again. "FUCK that is good shit." He favored Nergaul for a moment, eyebrow arched in Tony Stark style. "You haven't broken my toy have you? And maybe you're just afraid to tell me? You did didn't you?"

"Of course not!" Nergaul looked just the least bit put off. "I am not in the habit of lying, that is his job," he motioned at Loki, who glowered back at him.

"Then give JARVIS back," Tony said. "I can't do anything with him against you anyway. He just controls the house. It's not like he is going to kick you out for leaving a water ring on the coffee table." He mused over another glass of Scotch. "Unless you can't give him back."

Loki was staring at Tony now, a look that said he smelled what the man was stepping in. The god snorted. "He probably can not. We have no idea what he _can_ do besides raise the dead. That is _ALL _I have seen so far. Those wretched worms of his are all over the building and he can not even get them all together where they belong. They are just running loose, running into walls with their blind eyes. Stupid creatures!"

Tony laughed and tipped his glass at Loki. "I've seen those nasty fuckers! They look dumb as shit, they probably couldn't figure out how the hell to climb the fucking stairs, let alone use the elevators."

"They are disgusting, are they not?" Loki said, actually smiling a real genuine smile at Tony. "Wretched!"

"Horrible!"

"Foul and loathsome!"

"ENOUGH!" Nergaul roared. "You impotent creatures are nothing compared to my race. We are the true gods of this Universe and the next! You fools want to see what I truly am? DO YOU?" The serpent god began to change and grow, his eyes blazing with madness. One of the nasty worms crawled up onto the deck outside the glass doors. It screamed, and another landed next to it. Pieces of the hideous thing were coming from everywhere, crawling up the side of the building onto the deck. Nergaul grew, morphing into a serpents head, shattering the glass doors. The worms began to crawl to each other, molding together into one long rubber skinned monstrosity, with a huge nasty head full of razor sharp teeth.

"I did _not _expect that to fucking work," Tony hissed. "JARVIS?" he called. "Can you hear me?" He reached under the bar and pulled out two metal bracers. "JARVIS!"

"Sir," the A.I said. He sounded weak. Nergaul had apparently dropped his guard when he changed. "I am here. There is a problem in the lab, sir."

"What pro-" Tony began but was broken off by the sound of The Hulk howling in rage. Clint yelled something inaudible, and a loud crash echoed up the stairs. Natasha began to take the stairs down two by two.

"Great," I murmured. "That is totally what we needed."


	14. Chapter 14

"Stark!" Loki yelled above all the din. "We have to finish that thing. He has to be destroyed for this to end!"

We could hear the Hulk still raging downstairs. I wondered if he had turned yet, or was just slipping into madness as the zombie disease ate at his brain. I heard Natasha scream something in Russian, a curse perhaps, and then another crash, metal and glass.

"JARVIS!" Tony shouted. "The suit! Send the damn suit!"

"Yes, Sir."

Tony kissed me sudden and fierce. It felt almost frantic, and I brought my hand up to cup his face for a mere second before he pulled away from me. He looked determined, and for once he didn't say anything, but smiled his handsome half smile. Pieces of the Iron Man suit suddenly flew out of a closet at the end of the room-seeming to lock on to his body. Arm shields fit to the bracers on his wrists, as other pieces fit into them, and so on, until there he was, in his splendor. Iron Man. He took my breath away. He held up a hand, the light growing brighter on his palm, and sent a shot into the side of the creature on the deck. It reared up and wailed, and then brought its head crashing down hard enough to shake the building. Tony flew up and out into the storm, circling the monstrosity and firing energy blasts into its thick rubbery hide.

Nergaul roared and raised up onto its back legs. The legs that were useless for one worm in water, worked on the whole on dry land. The nasty bastard swung its rear section around, trying to knock Tony out of the air with its tail. He cursed and dodged, firing more shots into the things sides. A bank of rockets popped out of his shoulders and fired into the thing. It oozed a nasty black ichor all over the deck, but showed no signs on stopping.

"You have to kill the entire beast at once!" Loki shouted. "Kill the entire thing AT ONCE!"

"How does he do that?" I cried. "It's massive, and that head doesn't control the whole, its like a thing made up of smaller things…if he shoots it in the head, won't the other pieces just separate?"

Loki nodded, grimly. "It has to all die at once."

Just then the Hulk emerged from the downstairs lab. His eyes were milky and pieces of metal and glass were hanging from his body. "Shit!" I cried. "He's a-" but my train of thought was derailed by who had joined him. Natasha, her head twisted unnaturally to the side….and Clint, his face torn and bloody, one eye hanging from its socket. His throat had a large piece of bloodied glass protruding from it. They advanced on us, their howls mournful.

"No," I begged. I was talking more to the powers that be than to them. I didn't want them to be dead. "Please, no."

I backed away instinctively pulling my sword. Loki grabbed my hand and pulled me with him. "Nergaul has blocked my magic, so I can not transport us away from here. As much as I hate to admit it, your metal man is our last hope."

A blast landed in front of the advancing Avengers, sending them careening backwards. Hulk roared angrily, and tried to regain his footing, as another blast from Iron Man sent him flying back into the wall, a sizzling hole in his chest. The first bolt of light from Tony had broken Natasha's legs, and now she began to drag herself across the floor. Clint jerked along beside her. Tony blasted them again. He looked from me to the roaring Nergaul, it's huge mouth gaping, teeth glimmering. Then he lifted his faceplate and smiled at me. It was a sad smile.

"I'm going to end all this now," he said to me. "Loki, try to be a decent fucking person for once, or a demi god, _whatever,_ and get her out of here."

"What are you going to do?" I demanded. I tried to go to him, but Loki held onto me tightly. "What the hell are you going to do?" I screamed again.

"What I always do, baby," he flipped the face plate back down. "I'm going to save the fucking world."

His boosters kicked in, flame shooting out of his hands and feet. More missiles emerged from the shoulders of his red and gold armor, and he shot full tilt into the wide maw of the serpent god. The thing swallowed him whole….I could hear my own screaming, the zombies that had once been my friends were dragging closer…Loki had taken my sword and stood between us now. I was on my knees, the tears pouring down my face in rivers….screaming Tony's name. Loki sliced through the air with my katana, straight for Clint's ruined neck…and then the world blew apart.

The first explosion sounded and the serpent cracked, light pouring from inside of it. From head to tail, the light seeped out, and it shrieked, an awful high pitched noise, that made me clamp my hands over my ears. The light was nearly blinding, and then the thing began to blow apart. Something sharp flew through the air and hit my head, the blood instantly began to pour into my eye. Natasha's hands clamped around my thigh….the second explosion was deafening. I screamed again, Loki shouted, and teeth found my leg….another much louder explosion….and then there was nothing. Only blackness. Blissful quiet and dark.

My eyelids fluttered. I was aware that my head ached, a dull throb. Nothing I couldn't live with. A hand was holding mine. A large strong hand.

"What happened?" I blinked in the crisp white light. "Tony?"

"He gave his life to save yours," a soft but deep voice said.

I felt a knot form in my throat. "I want to see him. I…where am I?"

The deep voice answered, "In Asgard. Loki brought you here to heal you."

I sat up slowly. The owner of the voice was Thor. He was smiling at me, and as much as I wanted to smile back, my heart ached for the loss of my friends, the loss of Tony. I looked around the golden room, pushing back the velvety covers that I had been wrapped in. Loki sat in a chair next to the bed.

"I want Tony," I said shakily. And the tears began to come then. So many that I did not think I would ever be able to see again.

"He died a noble warrior's death," Thor answered. "But there is newness happening on your world. I would like to show you."

"Wha-?" I asked, through what must have been gallons of tears. I was so sick of fucking crying. It seemed like all I had been doing lately…since this all had begun.

Loki had said nothing as Thor held his huge hand out to me. I took it, marveling at how my own hand disappeared in his grasp, and let him lead me out of the room, and into a great hallway. Our footfalls clicked upon the marble floors, through another large dome shaped doorway, and outside into a courtyard of gold. It was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my entire life. Huge columns stood at four corners of an enormous gazebo. All around us were the beautiful stars in the night sky, but not Earth's sky…not the stars I was used to.

He led me to something that looked like the freaking Hubble telescope. It, like most other things here, was enormous and golden. Thor put his blue eye to the small glass at the end of the thing, stood for a moment looking, and then smiled. Backing away, he beckoned for me to look. I gasped at what I saw.

Home. Earth. The planet was shrouded in a strange fog full of eerie twinkling lights. "It's beautiful," I breathed. "But what does it mean?"

"Your world is healing, Journey," Thor said, a smile in his voice. "Nergaul's spell is broken, he is dead. When Tony Stark slay the great beast, the curse began to reverse itself. All things that were done, began to be undone. Do you see?"

I was hoping like hell that I did. "Is time reversing?"

Thor's eyes twinkled. "In a manner of speaking, yes."

"Tony?" I whispered, almost holding my breath. Uncertain if I should dare to hope something so insane. But wasn't this entire thing insane? Wasn't this like something out of Grimm's Grimmest Fairy Tales? Then why couldn't it have a fairy tale ending…a _happy _one.

Thor looked a little less excited. "He will once again be alive again…but," he paused.

"But what?" I nearly yelled.

"Your man of metal will not remember you," Loki's voice said from behind us. I spun around and saw him leaning against one of the great columns. He wasn't smirking like he usually was when delivering devastating news, but looked instead at his hands….as if they fascinated him. "He will be as he was…before you happened into his life."

I wasn't sure what to think. On one hand Tony would be alive again, they _all_ would, and that was such wonderful news. Fury wouldn't be missing, Steve wouldn't be dead in the street somewhere, Bruce, Clint, and Natasha would no longer be zombies. Nergaul couldn't come and reattack Earth, because he was dead and gone. Time would not reverse for those upon Asgard, including myself. That much was clear. But on the other hand, I had lost the man that I had stupidly fallen in love with. Like a fool, I had let my heart go to someone…and lost them. Now I would have to watch Tony Stark on the fucking news every time I turned on the damn TV, and not be able to see him in person…not be able to feel his touch ever again. His strong arms, his lips. It was torture, plain and simple. I felt like I _had_ died, like everyone else…..only I went to hell. That place that I didn't believe in…

Loki stared at me as if watching the storm of emotions raging in my eyes. He studied me for a moment, and then said, "Come with me."

"Why the fuck should I?" I yelled. "You should've let me die there. At least when everything went back like it had been, I would be none the wiser. I wouldn't have fallen in _LOVE_!" I spit the word out like poison in my mouth. The kind that burned.

Loki arched an eyebrow and looked faintly annoyed. "Come on, you insolent girl." He spun on his heel and marched away.

"Why isn't he in fucking chains?" I asked Thor.

"Father believes he has learned a true lesson this time," sighed Thor. "He has also taken Loki's powers away again." A small smile played at the corner's of his lips, the thought of Loki being without magic, obviously appealed to him.

"WILL YOU PLEASE COME ON?" Loki shouted from ahead of me. Thor nodded, as if to say that it was alright to trust Loki this once.

I begrudgingly followed, my hands shoved in the pockets of my jeans. What in the hell could he possibly want?

_I swear, if he gloats, I am kicking his ass, one way or the other,_ I thought, and then broke into a jog to catch up with the god of mischief.

"At least you said please," I called in a sickly sweet voice. I'm pretty sure I saw him roll his eyes as he walked on ahead.


	15. Chapter 15

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: I know, I know. I slapped myself too for the time reversal thing…I was like **_**WHAT? **_**And then that other evil me was like, **_**UHM, YEAH, BITCH**_**, and then I was like, **_**FUUUUCCCCK, we are pulling a Stephen King Dark Tower here.**_** Too which, that other evil me, reminded me how much I love that damn series with all my black little heart, even if the ending did hurt a little. So I won't TOTALLY screw the pooch here and be all Roland in the Badlands again…k? (Geezass…I hope at least someone knows what the hell I am talking about.)**

**Xionshalllive: Your review made me lolz all over the place, and I totally needed that this morning ****J. Mostly cause that is totally the way I felt while writing it! Thanks, doll! **

**glorious anon: I always totally love it when you review, it makes me do a happy dance. Which looks totally stupid. Holy shit, you made me look stupid. AWESOME ;) Btw, I have read your last updated chapter for DISCOMFORT like a zillion times, and when one applauds and tries to high five a laptop in a coffee shop…one tends to also look stupid. Who fuckin knew?**

**And on to the next chapter….will it be the end**_**? I dunno**_**. I'll let ya know when it's done.**

In that healing room on Asgard, my body had been cleaned and repaired. Even my clothing seemed new. All the zombie nastiness was washed away. I felt rejuvenated, refreshed. But my heart was the thing that needed healing now. It hurt like a bitch.

I followed Loki into a room that I recognized. Tapestries on the walls. Gold gilt ceiling. The wall had been repaired, but it still made me shudder. He saw the small tremor run through my body and smiled slightly. I glared at him.

"What do you want?" I asked low. Hoping it sounded dangerous. _Like I could ever be a danger to him._

"Come," he said, sitting down and patting the bed. "Sit with me."

I snorted. "Yeah, right."

Loki sighed and flicked his hand at me. "Have it your way then, girl."

"Really? Giving up just like that? The god who told me I was his to do with as he pleased?" I asked, amused. "You got your wish, I survived that holocaust…and now here I am in your room. What a fucked up turn of events this turned out to be."

"It is all reversing itself now, you are getting your horrid world back." Loki looked as if he might pout like an angry child. "I no longer own you. Your heart belongs to that…man." He cut his eyes at me. "However, he no longer needs you. You _could_ stay here with me."

I shook my head furiously. Though in all honesty, the thought had crossed my mind….to stay on Asgard, but not necessarily with Loki. "I couldn't," I murmured. "I don't know a thing about your world."

He stood and came to me, cupping my chin in his hand. "Stay with me. Love me, fear me, obey me, and I will treat you as my queen. You will be royalty…anything you want, anything in your deepest desires could be yours." His lips neared mine, his breath cool and fresh. "I could please you in ways you have never even dreamed," he murmured, claiming my mouth with his own.

Loki's cool and electric tongue swirled around mine. I moaned inwardly at the feeling, and felt the heat rising within me. His hand let go of my face, and ran down my neck. I leaned into his mouth, into his exploring hands. They ran over my body, leaving trails of cool electricity wherever they lingered. The god was persuasive, I give him that. I had no doubt he was true to his word…there were probably many ways he could please me that I had never known. Intriguing as it was, it also scared me.

Thoughts of Tony flashed in my mind. All our silly bantering and flirting. The way he had kissed me that last time, fevered and desperate. The sad smile on his face. Loki felt good, _really good_, but he did not feel _RIGHT. _Right then I knew that I would find Tony again, and make him mine. Somehow, he would love me again…because I was certain that he had. I only wish I had told him before he died how much I had felt for him. I was an idiot in so many ways.

I pushed Loki back, but gently. "I can't stay," I said softly. "I have to go back. Earth is my home. This world would never accept me."

Loki looked resigned, but at the same time, he looked like he understood. "As you wish. I will take you to Heimdall. He can send you…back to that planet of yours."

I ignored the jab, nodded, and let him guide me through the golden palace once again…back outside, and down the most spectacular path…I cannot even begin to explain it to whomever is reading this. It was myth and magic, all the fairy tales of youth mixed together in a cocktail with a splash of LSD added, and then poured upon the ground. A river of color.

It was strange how I had come here. Loki had done all manner of wicked things to me and those I loved…I had hated him, lusted after him, and fought beside him…and now here he was leading me home. Curious the way things turn out. _Mad. We are all mad here._

Thor greeted us in front of a huge dome shaped building at the end of the path. "I knew you would come!" he smiled. "Heimdall is waiting."

I threw my arms around him and hugged him furiously. "I hope I see you again," I said, and kissed his cheek. "You will be the only Avenger who remembers who the hell I am."

"I hope we shall meet again as well, Journey fare." Thor raised a hand to touch the place my lips had been.

I turned back to Loki. He was favoring the ground. "And you," I said. He raised his eyes too mine and arched an eyebrow. "Try not to fuck up anything….like Earth. Quit hatin' on us, would you?"

He smirked. "I make no promises."

"Well then," I held out my hand to him, "Until next time?"

Instead of shaking my hand, or recoiling like I was offering him a used condom, Loki grabbed my hand so hard that my knuckles popped. I winced, and he loosened his grip, and kissed the back of my hand with his cool soft lips. I could have swooned if my hand didn't hurt so fucking bad. Just a reminder of what he was…pain, and pleasure. Damn evil temptation.

Loki's lips lingered on the back of my hand, and he raised his eyes up to mine. Then of all things, he winked, let go of me, spun around on his heels, and marched away.

"That brother of yours has issues," I said to Thor, watching Loki swagger back toward the palace.

Thor laughed, a hearty booming sound. "That is very true. Now, we must go."

"We?" I asked.

"Yes. I made a very important decision just now. I am taking you to Stark Tower, as I did many days ago. Under much happier circumstances this time."

I studied his twinkling eyes. "What are you up too?" I mused.

"Come!" He bellowed, good naturedly. "Heimdall waits!" He took me by the arm and we approached what was quite possibly the most statuesque person I have ever seen. Heimdall was incredibly tall, swathed in gold armor. His skin was dark, his eyes golden like his clothing and the staff he held in his hands. He nodded to Thor and I, and then turned and entered the large dome shaped building. We followed him inside. Thor still had his hand on my arm, his grip much easier than his brothers, even though his hand was twice as big. We stood side by side as the large golden god used his staff like a key, placing it into a portal in the middle of the room. Things began to spin…a loud hum filled the air.

Suddenly the air was sucked out of my lungs, and Thor pulled me close to his side. We were flying, my lungs felt like they would burst…I felt sick, but the feeling quickly faded, and was replaced with the feeling of falling…and then a sudden landing. The air cleared…Stark Tower. I took a deep breath of noxious city air…and sighed. Home.

"Thor?" A question. A voice I knew. A voice I thought I would only hear again on the television. Tony stood in the large glass doorway of the penthouse, wearing a wife beater undershirt and a pair of jeans. The arc reactor shone through the thin fabric of the shirt…he had a glass of scotch in his hand, and was favoring us with a very odd expression on his face.

The air caught in my throat. My heart ached. I wanted to run to him right then and throw my arms around him, pull him as tight against me as he would fit. To be in front of a man that I loved…who had once loved me…who now looked at me in a way that said, "Who the fuck are you?"; a man that had been with me through so much shit in such a short period of time, but remembered NONE of it…it hurt so bad, I thought I might double over from the pain. It was like being punched in the gut-by Hulk.

"Tony Stark," Thor bellowed good naturedly. "I have someone I want you to meet." His huge hand clapped onto my back, shoving me forward. Maybe he thought that was funny, but I was having a goddamn panic attack. "Tell my friend Tony hello, fare Journey."

"Hey," I said, my voice shaking as bad as my knees. I hoped the knees were not as noticeable.

"Are you wanting an autograph or something?" Tony asked sarcastically. "What's going on, Thunder Mountain?" he asked, looking at Thor.

I turned toward Thor as well. "Now would be a really good time for me to jump off the side of this building, I think," I said, suddenly angry. I was angry at Thor for bringing me here, angry at Tony for being an ass, angry at myself for falling in love in the first place. I just wanted to bury my head in the sand like a fucking ostrich and wait for some predator to take me out.

"Do not say such things," Thor chuckled.

"I've got a lot of work to do here," Tony said, sounding irritated. "So if you two want to have a lovers spat could you do it somewhere else? Or tell me what the fuck you are doing here?"

"You look like you are terribly busy," I snarled. "Busy getting shit faced as usual, I see."

"Who the fuck _are _you? If you weren't covered in all the body mod shit, I would think you were some bitchy reporter," he glared back. "Why the hell is she _here_?" he shouted at Thor.

"Don't yell at him! He was just trying to help!" I cried, feeling very defensive. "But who would have guessed that _you _would act like a prick? Not Tony Fucking Stark, never!"

Tony advanced. "Do we know each other or something? Were you a one night stand, because if so I must have been _really_ wasted."

I took a step forward, livid. "Which would be any different from every other day how? Aren't you always wasted? And what the hell is that supposed to even mean?" We were just a couple of feet from each other then. "Am I not Top Model enough for you? Too fucking real maybe, Old Man?"

He stopped edging toward me then. "What did you call me?"

"Fuck that! YOU SIR, are an arrogant, narcissistic prick. A selfish OLD…"

"You called me Old Man," Tony interrupted. His eyes looked hazy, like the Scotch had suddenly gone to his head.

I was still totally raging. How could I have ever thought this man loved anyone more than himself? He was only in it for Tony, only alive for his own glory. How the hell could _I _have fallen for a man like this? What the fuck was I-

And in the middle of all this pissed off mental ranting, Tony kissed me. Just like that. He grabbed me by both shoulders, and pulled me to him so fast I think my feet both left the ground at the same time. I was wrapped in his solid embrace, and I let myself melt into him, all anger gone. When he pulled back from my lips, his eyes were wide and searching.

"I know you," he breathed. "It feels like a daydream, all fuzzy, but I DO know you. I…I…_fuck!" _

His mouth claimed mine again, this time crushing and breathless, growling deep in his chest like an animal. I quivered all over. My hands were in his dark mass of hair, pulling…my tongue seeking out the depths of his hot wet mouth. I did not want him just close to me, I needed him to be _part_ of me. One of Tony's hands slid down and under my thigh and pulled my leg up around his waist. He bit at my lower lip, my name easing out of his mouth in a groan as he let go. "Journey…I thought I had lost you."

My voice was choked as I said, "We lost each other. I don't know how this is possible, hell, I never knew how _any _of it was possible…but you remember don't you?"

"I died," he whispered. "I didn't want too, because I didn't want to leave you. It was the only way though, and there were…" He broke off , and I felt him shiver. "I'm glad that's all over. That might just drive me to drink."

I snickered. "I'm glad you haven't lost your sense of humor."

He laughed, possibly the best sound I had heard all damn day. Reluctantly I let go of him, and turned to look at Thor. He was watching us closely, a curious smile on his face.

"How did you know?" I asked.

"I did not," Thor answered happily. He looked like an excited child that wanted to jump up and down and clap his meaty hands together. But thankfully he refrained. "It was merely my intuition. Love is a powerful force."

"Whoa-don't get all Hallmark card on us," Tony said holding up a hand, even though there was a giddy smile on his face. "Let's just call it good, shall we? Pom Pom Queen and I have some catching up to do." He winked at the god. Thor laughed his great bellowing laugh and nodded in understanding.

"I never cared for that nickname, old man," I grinned.

"I'll make you like it," he said, narrowing his eyes. "Just watch and see."

"See you soon?" I called to Thor as Tony was dragging me into the penthouse.

"Absolutely, lady fare!" He called, and in a flash of swirling light, he was gone.

I snorted. "I really love that guy, but sometimes he can be so naive."

Tony arched an eyebrow. "How so?"

"He called me a lady."

**A/N: NOPE I promise it's not over. The next chapter is pretty much just going to be gratuitous sex and smut though. I'm not sure how much substance is going to be in there. Review, my beautiful fiends! Tell me how bad I fucked this up or got it right, or whatever….**


	16. Chapter 16

Tony tossed his head back and laughed loudly. "What makes you think you aren't a lady?"

"Have you _seen _me?" I answered, amused. "Hell, it feels like only hours ago I was wearing a zombie blood suit and screaming profanities at a giant worm."

"Baby, the Queen of England would've been doing the same thing in a zombie apocalypse. And she is the epitome of LADY."

We walked back into the coolness of his house, laughing together, and I instantly felt like I was home. I looked around the big room, all the windows letting in the light. I loved his modern furniture, and that bar looked mighty fucking fine too…Tony caught me favoring my surroundings.

"You aren't already trying to put a woman's touch on my shit are you?" he asked.

"Are you implying that I am to stay?"

He arched an eyebrow. "That was decided ages ago, if I remembering correctly. But you know I did forget everything, so…" He looked around the room. Without looking at me, he sniffed and said, "Will you?"

"Will I what?"

Tony sighed heavily. "I am not so good at this domestic shit." He pulled me back into his arms. "Will you…stay here with me?" he whispered into my ear.

"Well, you know I did have that exclusive invitation to go live at the White House and all…"

"You aren't going to make this easy on me, are you?" he murmured, his lips on my neck. Sucking, nipping, his tongue licking. He was trying to distract me, and it almost worked.

"Nope," I sighed. "I will stay with you on one condition."

"Name it." I could tell by the husk in his voice that he was lost in his own lust.

I pushed him back, pulling my body from his mouth. "You have to beg for it."

"Wait. What?" That had caught him off guard. I smiled lasciviously and turned to go into his bedroom. I pulled my shirt off over my head as I walked, discarding it in a chair. The bra came next, tossed to the side, baring my smooth tattooed back completely to his hungry eyes I could feel him behind me, following….watching. Shoes kicked under the bed, jeans slowly slid over hips. Polka dot panties on the floor…and stepped out of.

"Do you want me?" I asked, the lust in my voice evident. Also evident in the peak of my hardened nipples. I ran my hands over them.

Tony stared at me like a wolf about to take down his prey. His lip curled in a sideways smile. "You are a wicked little thing. You know I want you," he growled. Looking at the front of his jeans showed that he was not lying in the least. Slowly, he pulled the undershirt over his head, tossing it with my discarded bra. I marveled at him. My gods, he was perfect. The reactor in his chest was exquisitely beautiful, the soft blue glow undulating across his smooth skin. It was mesmerizing, calming. I wanted to touch him, but I held myself at bay. His dark eyes were devouring my skin, I could feel the gaze, heavy and hot. Damp like sweat soaked skin. It felt palpable, I wanted to moan, but I bit it back. Tony was the only person I had ever known, who could fuck me with only his goddamn eyes.

Trying to not look disheveled, I motioned for him to approach me. Tony arched an eyebrow, but complied with the unspoken demand, a look of intense curiosity on his face. His full pouty lips were parted just slightly, and his tongue darted out to slowly lick them. My body burned. He furrowed his eyebrows, eating me alive with those eyes. I quivered. He saw my weakness, but did not pounce on it. Instead he sauntered across the room with all the grace of a cat.

When at last he reached for me, I stepped back and shook my head. I sat on his plushy oversized bed, leaning back into the comfort and spreading my legs to him. My hands ran over my body, forcing him to watch, as my fingers found the slickness between my legs…and lingered there. I couldn't bite back the moan, and arched into my own hand. Our eyes locked, his brows knit together tighter, more intense. His lips were still parted, he was panting, a caged animal about to attach. He would ravage me, absolutely rip me apart if he got to me now. But I wasn't ready yet.

My fingers left the ache between my legs. "Beg me," I said huskily

.

"You are killing me, baby," he hissed. "I'm the one who makes _you _beg." Tony took a step forward. I held up my hand, a warning for him to stop.

"Beg for it, if you want me to stay… if you want to touch me at all. Beg me."

Tony's dark eyes glittered. He took another step toward the bed. "What I would like to do, is cover that pretty pierced mouth of yours with my hand, and fuck you senseless till you come. Till all I can hear are your muffled screams begging me to stop because it hurts so good," he said silkily, a savage smile on his face. "I could do that, you know."

How I adored this game. "You can't have me until I say it's time, Stark," I snarled. The truth was, I was aching so bad it already hurt so good.

"Sounds like a stand off," he grinned. My fingers between my legs again made the grin leave Tony's face. He bit his bottom lip and knit his eyebrows once again. "Fuck," he breathed. "That is so damn hot."

My fingers worked swiftly, and I arched my back, moaning. "Please," came a barely audible whisper.

I looked at him and cocked an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Please, I really need to touch you right now," Tony murmured. He was the one who know looked disheveled, almost desperate. And his jeans looked incredibly painful.

I pulled away my hand, curling my finger toward him…permission granted. Tony was out of his jeans faster than I have ever seen a man get undressed. He pounced on me, his mouth frantic, his hands everywhere, his cock sliding into me. So hard, so powerful. I screamed and bit his shoulder, pumping up into him as he pounded into me. Suddenly I stopped him, using muscles and strength I had summoned up from god knows where, I rolled over on top of him and managed to stop his thrusts.

Tony groaned in protest and tried to piston his hips up hard, back into me. I pulled up off of him, tightening my wall muscles, keeping him at bay, and simultaneously held him down with my hands. "BEG!" I shouted at him.

"Goddamnit, Journey!" He cried. But there was no anger there, only want. Pure adrenaline driven need. "Please, please, baby, don't stop," he moaned.

"Say what you want," I growled, grinding my hips back down onto his length. I gripped him as hard as I could, preventing him from pushing me back up to find that friction he so desperately wanted.

Tony was flushed with desire. His hair, damp with sweat, clung to his forehead, and his eyes were glazed.

"Fuck me," he said, breathless with lust. "Please, baby. I need you to fuck me." It was almost a whine, there was so much desperation and frustration in his voice. I loved it, that power that he always had over me was now mine for tonight. I would give it back eventually, it was not in my nature to be the top.

I rode him as hard as I could, pounding myself down on him over and over, swirling my hips, squeezing. Tony's head was thrown back into the softness of the comforter, his moans coming fast and breathless, torrents of delicious words pouring from his open mouth. His beautiful long luxurious fingers gripped at my hips. In a word? Intoxicating. My head was swimming as I neared orgasm. Watching his face, listening to him beg, was getting me there faster than fucking him.

I closed my eyes, listening to Tony mutter and moan, feeling him inside of me, all around me. With my eyes closed and my hands clawing at his stomach, I felt like we were one person, one being. It was hard to tell where I ended and Tony began. The heat flaring in my groin was starting to build…the pressure was intense. I ground into him, opening my eyes, my tongue licking at my lips, and saw that he was staring at me intently, watching my face as I had been watching his before.

"Baby," Tony breathed, "I'm going to come."

I smiled wickedly, and squeezed at him, gripping his cock inside of me as hard as I could, and then leaned forward, digging my fingernails into his shoulders. He cried out and swore, and I kissed him deeply. I screamed his name as our orgasms came, one after the other…hard, racking both our bodies with tremors. I collapsed on top of him, quivering and feeling his hands in my hair; his length spasming inside of me.

When I leaned up, Tony was staring hard at me. Almost hard enough to make me uneasy. "Are you alright?" I finally asked.

He opened his mouth, as if to say something, and then quickly snapped it shut. He ran his hands through his tussled hair, and then opened and closed his mouth again.

"You look like a fish out of fucking water," I murmured, lifting myself off of him. "Speaking of water, a long hot shower and a drink would be wonderful right now."

"On it," he said, hopping off the bed-seemingly grateful to not have to say whatever was trying to come out of his mouth.

Two hours and four margaritas later, I was a happy fucking camper. We were sitting in deck chairs outside, enjoying the sunshine. It had been several days of continuous night, and nothing but green lightening and occasional torrential rain. I was loving it. Tony was staring at me, a goofy lopsided grin on his face.

"I," I slurred out, "am happier than a pig in shit."

He laughed, "God, you Southern Belles and your fucked up lingo.. That is nasty as hell."

"Yes Sir, but true too boot. And I never said I was a lady, remember?" I giggled a little. "Sooo, what were you going to say to me in the bedroom earlier?"

"When?"

"Don't play dumb with me, old man," I said, pointing a very buzzed finger at him. "You aren't old enough to be senile yet. You still have another 5 or 10 years." He flipped me off and I giggled hysterically. After getting my game face back on, I said, "You know, after we marathon fucked, cause that be how we do."

He smiled, but only looked down into his drink, thoughtful. After a moment, Tony lifted his head up, but didn't make eye contact with me.

"I think I might fucking love you," he said very softly, almost to the point of being inaudible. "And now I need to freshen my drink." Tony jumped up and practically ran back into the penthouse, to the bar.

I sat, stupefied. I'm pretty sure my mouth was hanging open like a moron. Or a zombie. Had he really just said _that _word first? I figured it would come tumbling out of me before he ever said it, if he ever actually _DID _say it.

I turned in my seat to look at him. Tony was staring at me, and as soon as our eyes locked he spun back to the bar and began pouring another drink.

"Fuck _that_," I mumbled to myself, and jumped up, stumbled, spilled my drink, cursed for looking like a sloppy drunk, and marched my happy ass back into the tower a la Stark. I sauntered up to the bar, took the bottle from Tony's hand (that appeared to be shaking just a teensy bit) and sat it down.

"Say it again," I said staring him right in his dark eyes.

"Journey, don't," he said softly. He looked like he might have a panic attack any second. If Tony Stark actually had those. I figured if one thing could make him panic, love would be it.

"No-no, I am not playing a game here. This isn't like me telling you to beg for it during sex…this is real," my eyes searched his face. "I need to know you just said what I think you did, and that you meant it. Not that it was some bullshit thing you said in a moment of drunken bliss. Please, Tony."

He reached out and ran a callused hand down my face. I leaned into it. "I love you," he whispered. "It's really hard for me to say."

"Why? Why is it so fucking hard considering all the shit we have just been through?"

Tony ran a weary hand through his hair. He reached out and put a hand on the small of my back, leading me to one of his leather couches. "Sit, and I will try to tell you."

I obeyed immediately. This had to be good.

"Okay," he began, looking uncharacteristically uncertain, "I am not good with love. I tend to fuck it up really bad."

I opened my mouth to say something, but he put a shushing finger to my lips. "Let me finish first." I nodded. "I loved a woman very intensely not so long ago. She was amazing….but the person that I was, the person I have always been, drove her away." He studied his hands for a moment before continuing. "I could have changed. I could have gotten her back, and worked through it all, but…I'm an ass. That's it plain and simple. I…I like women. I like to fuck. I like booze. I tend to loose myself in my work, sometimes for days, and I can be a total fucking douche. I say some shitty things." He sighed. "What I am trying to say here, is that I am destined to fuck this up. I'll tear both our fucking hearts out and drive you away."

"Whoa, babe," I said throwing my hands up, "stop right there. I know you have a flair for the dramatic, but _damn _slow your roll. When we met the very first time, I was shit faced. You charmed me right out of my panties and a hangover in your kitchen the next morning. I have done some fucked up things myself, including letting a god seduce me on a rooftop…and I have watched you basically shamelessly beg Natasha's hot ass to take it off. You _forgot _me, for gods sake, and we nearly went toe to fuckin toe on your lil porch out there. _My _point is :I'm still here."

Tony cocked his signature eyebrow at me. "I didn't _beg _her, and that is NOT a little porch, thank you very much."

"I'm from the South, baby, we sip mint juleps on the veranda,…it's this _big_ porch that stretches all the way around the farm house."

"Stereotype much?"

I grinned. "Yeah I made all that shit up. We lived in a run down house till I ran away after…well, I ran off, and my mother followed me. Which was lovely." I shuddered, with a sudden memory of her. Shake it off.

"Let's talk about this love thing," I said, squinting at him and changing the subject back . "Are you basically telling me that you are going to drink like you usually do, spend lots of time inventing badass shit, sometimes act like a moody bitch, and occasionally fuck around on me?"

Tony was staring at the floor now. I grabbed his chin and pulled his face up so that our eyes once again locked. He sighed. "That might pretty much be…exactly what I am saying."

I stood up, walked to the bar, and threw back the glass of Scotch he had poured for himself. It tasted like shit, but it put the burn in my belly that I was looking for, and gave me the courage to say what I did next. "I accept."

"What?" he said from behind me. I turned toward him. Tony hadn't moved, and now seemed to be holding his breath.

"I said," I stepped toward him, "that I accept these terms and conditions of our relationship."

"You're kidding."

"Do I _look_ like a fucking stand up comedian? No, I'm not kidding. I will stand by your side through all of it. I will be there when you wake up with the world's worst hangover and swear off alcohol AGAIN. I will be there when you come home with some slutty thing from the club on your arm…though there will have to be some ground rules, and if she is really hot, I want a piece too." (_His_ mouth now fell open) "I will be there after you have been in your lab for 48 hrs without food or a shower. And when you act like a bitch, I will return it with just as much fervor….you feel me?"

He studied me for a moment. "You're bi-sexual?"

I threw my hands up again. "Why is that the only fucking thing you pulled out of that whole diatribe?"

Tony grinned and stood up. "I love it when you use those nerdy girl words. Makes me want to pull your hair up and put you in a pair of glasses…make you own personal naughty librarian."

I shook my head. "I give up."

"Already?" he pouted. It was so hot. "But you said you wouldn't." He walked over and wrapped his arms around my waist. "You would really stay with me, if I put you through all that?"

I softly kissed him. The tastes of Scotch and Tony danced on my tongue. When I reluctantly pulled away from him, I said, "Tony Stark, I love you. I have known it for days, but I kept trying to tell myself that it wasn't real. I didn't think you had any interest in love."

"This is so fucking cliché that I cannot even believe it is coming out of my goddamn mouth, but I never planned on loving again. I thought losing Pepper…that was her name…losing her was the hardest thing I have ever been through. It was worse than the zombies and giant worms. So I turned off the feelings, and threw myself into improving the suit and sleeping with as many beautiful bodies as possible. Then I realized that I was going to have to lose you, and that was worse." He looked a little embarrassed. "I knew I loved you the moment I had to say goodbye to you. All I wanted was to hold you forever at that fucking moment."

"_That_ is quite possibly the sweetest thing I have ever heard," I breathed. I was totally in awe, like a star struck teenage girl. Giddy.

"You must have been in love with some real winners then," Tony smirked.

"I've only been in love once," I confessed. "Josh. He wasn't the one. He was my high school sweetheart…yes, people STILL do that…Josh wanted a family, and kids, a little dog, and a house in the suburbs, with a good school district. I was 21, and had so much life ahead of me, and he wanted to marry me. Settle me down and make a housewife out of me."

Tony gave me a look. "I know, I know. I couldn't be the things he wanted me to be. I broke his heart into a million pieces. The good news is, that he married my best friend, and they now have a baby girl…and a house in the suburbs, with one little yappy dog and a cat. He got someone who could give him the life he wanted."

Tony tipped my face up, his lips just inches away. I loved it when he sat there like that, with our mouths so close they were almost touching…just a heartbeat away. "I think we can give each other the lives we want."

I almost swooned, I swear to god. He brought his mouth down on mine, but not the crushing kisses I had come accustomed too with Tony. This one was soft, searching, like he was memorizing my mouth with his. His hands slid up my arms, wrapping around my back and pulling me against him. "Come to bed," he softly murmured.

"I accept."

**A/N: K still not done, I have not yet reached the conclusion that I am happy with. So there will be at least one more chapter. Maybe I should wrap it up, and then right a sequel later on…I already have a new story rolling around in my head, but not a Journey story. I have two OC's that I have been writing for years. I know them like I know myself. Journey had her fun (and she will continue to have it, but the other gal is itching to get out and prowl through the Avengers….hmmmm). Anyhow, hope you guys liked the smut! And I apologize for any typos, I was sleep deprived and bleary eyed while writing this one. It was not chemically induced…I swear (insert goofy stupid grin here)**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews as always…and Elaine123, I am soooo excited about your new fic, I cannot wait to read it! Thank you for saying I was a muse, that just tickles me pink ;-) **

**I had alot of emotional and family stuff going on while writing this, and it was hard to write...Much love to all of you, and I hope this is not lame!**

Tony took me to bed in a way he never had before. He undressed me slowly. There was no frantic need in us now, and he touched every inch of me with careful hands, before laying me down on his bed. I had a feeling this must be the way he touched his roadsters when he was restoring them. _Which either would make me a sweet piece of machinery or a classic…hmmmm._ I didn't mind either way.

When he came to me, his mouth was intimate, passionate, not the fevered lips that had burned my flesh in so many other couplings…not this time. We had all the time in the world. Tony's callused hands cupped my face when he kissed me, brushed my neck, and then his fingers twined gently into my hair. He said nothing as our bodies moved together, locked in a lovers embrace. Tony's dark soulful eyes never left mine, and he did not fuck me that night, not one single time. But we came together repeatedly.

When morning's light snaked into the room and flickered across my face, warming my eyelids, I awoke. Tony was not in the bed, and I had a fleeting sensation of fear, that I was to be like so many others, thrown out on my ass after a night spent with him. But the smooth voices I heard from the other room reassured me that he was still here.

"JARVIS?" I said softly, not sure if the A.I. would answer me.

"Yes, Miss," his cultured voice replied.

"Who is talking with Tony in the living room?"

"Mr. Banner and Mr. Rogers are speaking with Mr. Stark, Miss. Mr. Banner seems rather… upset."

I grimaced. Bruce upset could spell big green trouble.

I showered quickly and dressed. Black tank top and ripped jeans today. I felt like showing off some tats…in fact I was already planning a new zombie themed montage for my thigh. I couldn't seem to get it off my mind, which was the way a new tattoo always was until it was taken from my brain and put on my skin. No zombie pun intended.

I tried to be quite as I slipped into the room, hoping I wasn't disturbing them. Tony had his back to me and Bruce was standing directly in front of him, holding a drink and animatedly describing something. Steve was leaned against the bar, his arms crossed and a serious look on his face. It took everything I had not to run to him and throw my arms around him…plant a wet sloppy kiss on his full pouting lips. I thought I would never seen his pretty face again, after Tony had had too….well, no sense repeating that shit.

Bruce saw me first. His mouth fell open and the glass fell from his hand. Tony's cat like reflexes caught it before it could shatter on the floor.

"It's her," Bruce hissed. "You're her!"

"Uhm, yes, I'm her, but I'm not sure if I'm you're her…if that makes any sense," I said flustered. Bruce was coming toward me. He stopped just inches from me, and put his hand out to touch my face but stopped.

"I knew it wasn't just a dream. I knew it was real. Your name is Journey, isn't it?"

I smiled and leaned my face into his palm. "You remember, don't you?"

"We are all starting to," Steve said. "Little bits and pieces, like flashbacks…and in dreams. You are the last bit of evidence we needed to know this is not just some shared…hysteria."

"Loki's magic," I whispered.

"What?!" Tony said sharply. Just the mention of the god put him on edge…with good reason.

"None of you were supposed to remember. That was part of it, when they sent me back here, Thor and Loki said none of you would remember. But Tony did," I looked at him. "Thor thought it had something to do with love, but that's a bit to sentimental for me. I think it was all Loki. I think he used his magic to make you all remember."

Bruce looked a little embarrassed and removed his hand from my face. "And why would he do that?"

"Because he is an arrogant narcissistic little prick," said Tony. "He couldn't live with the us, his enemies, not being able to remember that he and his fucking worm buddy almost destroyed the entire Earth….and nearly bested the Avengers."

"Makes sense to me," said Steve. He looked grim. "I remember, you know…I remember dying."

I looked at him sympathetically. "We all remember things we wish we didn't." Steve nodded, and offered me a sad smile. "You know I'm not sure if that is the exact reason that Loki let us all remember," I said looking at Tony.

"Oh, don't you dare," he growled. "That would be same as defending him."

"I didn't even say what I was thinking yet!"

"You didn't have to, it's written all over you. I know you had a moment with him, but goddamit, I haven't forgotten the way you screamed for me while he was raping you." Tony's eyes were dangerously dark and stormy. But I knew it wasn't really me he was angry with. It was the memory.

I winced, however, as I hadn't forgotten it either. "Look," I sighed. "He unleashed something that he didn't mean too. I woke up to Loki and Thor hovering over my bed in Asgard. And I saw how worn he was. Loki is a cruel god, but he didn't realize how fucked up Nergaul was, or that he was a world eater. Maybe, just fucking maybe, he let us remember, because we _needed _to, and he knew it."

Tony was frowning. "What happened with you and that fucker before Thor brought you back?"

_God, I HATE it when he looks at me like I just fucked the entire football team and we aren't going to Prom together. _"We got married, I forgot to tell you. It was a beautiful ceremony, we all wore black."

For a moment I thought he was going to yell at me, which wouldn't have bothered me that much. I had it coming, just like he'd had that seething comment coming. Instead he grinned. "You are such a little bitch. I really fucking love that about you."

I arched an eyebrow. "Nothing happened with us in Asgard." _I'm just going to leave out that little detail of the kiss that got me wetter than a fucking slip and slide…even if it did wake me up and make me realize how much I love this narcissistic fucker in front of me. _"And I love you too. Prick."

"I know you love my pri-" Tony's smug and sleazy remark was interrupted by Steve, who loudly cleared his throat.

"So, yeah," a flustered Captain America said. He rubbing the back of his 1940's hair cut. "The zombies aren't coming back. We _are _all on the same page with all that, right?"

"Nergaul is dead," I answered. "Tony killed him, and he was the one with the power to raise the dead…so nope no more animated nastiness crawling around the streets gooing everywhere and trying to nibble on folks noggins."

"Southerner," snorted Tony.

"Damn Yankee."

Bruce was watching us and grinning. "You two are so cute I could throw myself off this balcony." He laughed at Tony's arched eyebrow. "Tony Stark finds love again. Who would have every believed that? And here we all thought you only loved yourself."

"Oh, he does," I nodded. "But I make him look good, so it just feeds his ego."

A leather pillow sailed by my head. "Next time I throw my drink," he warned.

"You wouldn't waste the alcohol," Steve said. "And if you did, you'd be sucking it out of the carpet later."

I laughed till I though my sides would cave in…. Tony flipped Steve off. Bruce held up his glass in a mock salute. "I'll drink to that."

It all sounds cheesy as hell, I know it. But I am sitting on the deck of this huge fucking penthouse, my new home apparently, finishing all this up...I don't ever want to forget any of it. After all, we all remembered, and there is a reason for all madness, whether we like to believe it or not. At the moment there's a margarita in my hand, and the sun feels amazing. Even now, nearly two months later, I still smile every time I get up and see the sun shining in the window. It's rained a few times, but thankfully the sky never turned black, and the lightening was a nice normal blue-white.

It has been blessedly quite in the last month. No Avengers assembling to take out half crazed gods, or lunatics with big toys they want to show off. Tony wasn't lying though. He has put me to the test…and challenge accepted. He's a hard man to live with,let alone love. The man spends countless hours in the lab with Bruce talking in geek speak that might as well be Greek speak. Sometimes they come up for air, looking like nine kinds of over baked hell, needing showers and shaves and smelling like a locker room. They grab food and then duck back in the lab before I can point and laugh, and accuse them of fucking with a wistful twinkle in my eye. Hey a girl can fantasize.

But before the fantasies are all I have and just as I get ready to go put my foot in Tony's ass and tell him I need some personal attention in the bedroom…here he will come. Clean and groomed, and ready to wine and dine me until I can't stand anymore. Tony Stark knows how to smooth over the rough edges…and he knows how to make a woman smile….among other things.

In fact, he's on his way out here now. I haven't seen him in two days, and I've missed the son of a bitch. I write that with a smile on my lips. The kind that my momma would have called a "cat that ate the canary shit eatin grin". He has told me we are going dancing, and I know Tony…when he goes dancing he looks at all the pretty little things. It tickles the shit out of him that I do too. So, is this the end….I don't know. I may just have another story to tell. Stick around, who knows what could happen next in the tower a la Stark. With these guys, I am always ready for fucking _anything_!

The End…..or is it?

**A/N: So this was hard, because I honestly did not want it to end…but I knew it had too, or it would become totally redundant. There will be a sequel, I will start it soon, but not yet. I started working on another story, only to have it change course on me partway through…so it's metamorphosis may have actually made it start over. Aw well…anyway, I hope you all that favorited this story will favorite me as an author so you can check out my next story. Thanks everyone for all the awesome reviews, you guys actually make me feel like I am decent at this shit. Love you all, you shiny thangs ;)**


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